Report on Organization
(Adopted by the Plenum on Organization
Kolkata, December 27-31, 2015
Introduction
1.1 The 21st Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) decided to hold a Plenum on Organisation by the end of 2015. The political situation in the country with the offensive of the rightwing communal forces makes it all the more incumbent to strengthen every level of the Party organisation so as to make the Party an instrument to build, unleash and advance class and mass struggles so as to change the present correlation of forces in the country in favour of the Left and democratic forces. The Plenum is also required to address the decline in the mass base of the Party and to overcome the failure to expand the Party’s influence and mass strength. The Plenum should assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Party organisation and decide the focus for the organisation in the coming days.
1.2 The review of the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 conducted by the Central Committee decided that four steps had to be taken. The first was to re-examine the political-tactical line. This was done at the Party Congress. The second was to review Party organisation and the orientation of work among the people. The third was to review the mass organisations and their orientation. These two tasks were to be undertaken at this Plenum. Fourthly, studies were to be undertaken on changes in socio-economic conditions after liberalisation and the impact of these changes on various classes. Concrete slogans were to be formulated on the basis of these studies. Certain issues in this regard were taken up and approved at the Party Congress; the remaining issues are to be taken up and concrete slogans to be formulated at this Plenum.
1.3 After the formation of the CPI(M) in 1964, the Party took up the question of organisation in the resolution titled “Tasks on Party Organisation” approved by the Central Committee in November 1967. This resolution marked a break with revisionist ideas of Party organisation and provided a correct orientation to the task of building a revolutionary organisation. The Salkia Plenum on Party organisation was held in December 1978 after the 10th Congress of the Party approved the new political-tactical line. The Salkia report and resolution gave a thrust to the task of creating an all-India mass revolutionary Party and expanding the Party at the all-India level.
1.4 Thirteen years later, the 14th Congress reviewed the implementation of the Salkia Plenum in the “Report on Organisation and Tasks” and set out the organisational tasks for the forthcoming period. Since then, successive Party Congresses have reviewed the work on the organisational front, each setting out immediate tasks. The Central Committee approved, in 1996 and 2009, two resolutions on Rectification. The Central Committee also approved, in 1981 and 2004, two resolutions on the Party’s approach to mass organisations; these attempted to provide a correct understanding of and orientation for the work of the mass organisations.
1.5 The Salkia Plenum on Organisation was held in 1978, when the Party’s image and influence was on the ascendant in the post-Emergency period. The present Plenum is being held when the Party is facing a decline in its mass base. The main purpose of the Plenum is thus to decide how to strengthen the Party organisation in order to reverse that decline and to ensure the expansion of the Party and of mass movements.
1.6 The atmosphere created by the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the setbacks to socialism had their impact on Party organisation. Further, globalisation and neo-liberalism and the rise of communalism have also had a direct bearing on the working of the organisation. Party organisation must be streamlined keeping in mind the need to fight against the effects of these developments.
1.7 The CPI(M) as a Party of the working class is committed to the strategic goal of the People’s Democratic Revolution. This requires the mobilisation of the basic classes – the working class, and poor peasants and agricultural workers as the core of the revolutionary alliance, the people’s democratic front, under the leadership of the working class. The forging of a Left and democratic front is a step towards this goal.
1.8 The political tactical line adopted at the 21st Congress has restored the primacy of building the Left and democratic front. This requires an enormous increase in the independent strength of the Party. The way to fulfill this in the organisational sphere is to forge live links with the masses. The mass line on organisation means to be integrated with the people and to pick up their issues to advance class and mass struggles. It is through this process that we can advance towards the Left and democratic alliance.
1.9 The political-tactical line of the 21st Congress has called for fighting back against the right-wing offensive represented by the forces of neo-liberalism, communalism, and authoritarianism. This ruling class offensive is backed by imperialism. Party organisation has to be equipped to fight these forces. The focus has to be on how to build a strong all India Communist Party with a mass base.
1.10 The Party has faced innumerable attacks from the ruling classes and its agents. Hundreds of Party members and sympathisers have sacrificed their lives in the last two and a half decades in various parts of the country. In the strong states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, there have been concentrated attacks at various juncture. The latest instance of attack is the terror and violence directed against the Party in West Bengal by the Trinamul Congress and its government. The selfless dedication of the Party cadres has helped the Party to grow in these three Left bases. The Party organization must be capable of facing and overcoming such difficult situations.
1.11 This Draft Report has been prepared after considering the replies sent by the State Committees to a comprehensive questionnaire prepared by the Polit Bureau.
1.12 The report is divided into four parts:
1.13 Part One deals with Party Organisation as a whole. It has four sections:
I: Streamlining the Organisational Structure;
II: Quality Membership for a Revolutionary Party;
III: A Party Based on Democratic Centralism
IV: Wage the Ideological Struggle.
1.14 Part Two deals with the independent and democratic functioning of mass organisations.
1.15 Part Three is about new directions for class and mass struggles.
1.16 Part Four concerns how to build the organization and movements in each State.
Part One
Streamlining the Organisational Structure
I
Style of Functioning – For a Mass Line
1.17 There has to be a major reorientation in the style of functioning of the leadership at all levels. A certain degree of routinism and stereotyped functioning has crept into the organisation at all levels. This is due to the loss of living links with the people. The mass line and mass orientation should be inculcated in all the cadres. Learning from the masses and then going to the masses should be the approach. We have to break the pattern whereby leaders addressing public meetings and rallies become the only formal connection with the masses. Leading cadres at all levels have to participate in door to door campaigns, mass fund collection, attending neighbourhood meetings, sympathisers meetings and Party meetings to hear the views of cadres and sympathisers. The practice of leading cadres, particularly from the district committee downwards including leaders of mass organisations spending time with various sections of the people by staying overnight in villages and working class localities and interacting with the people should be inculcated. It is by this experience that we can initiate class and mass struggles. Leaders at all levels including the PB/CC should directly participate in the mass campaigns and struggles. They should spend time in the area where the movements are taking place to guide and assist them.
Failure in Implementation of Organisational Tasks
1.18 Though many correct decisions were taken consequent to the Review of the Implementation of the Salkia Plenum decisions in the 14th Congress and in successive Party Congresses, we have failed to either implement them adequately or pursue them. Why we were unable to do so must be grasped and pinpointed. Some of the reasons are:
(1) Inability of the Polit Bureau and the Central leadership to execute the decisions on organisation properly due to either pre-occupation with day to day political tactics or, due to trends of federalism and liberalism.
(2) Growing parliamentarism which undermined the focus on building a revolutionary party organisation and development of mass organisations.
(3) Erosion of ideological conviction and consequent loss of impetus for politics distinct from bourgeois parties.
(4) Falling quality of Party membership which militated against the practice of democratic centralism from top to bottom.
1.19 The structure of the Party organisation has to be streamlined so that it is capable of implementing the mass line and initiating and leading the class and mass struggles. At every level, the organisation should be equipped to conduct the political and ideological work to consolidate and expand the mass base.
Party Centre
1.20 A central place is occupied by the Party Centre in the organisational structure. The process of building and strengthening the Party Centre began with the direction given in the Salkia Plenum. The efforts made since the 14th Party Congress organisational review to strengthen the Centre have yielded results.
1.21 At present after the 21st Congress, there are eight PBMs working from the Centre which is the highest number so far. The Secretariat to assist the Polit Bureau was constituted first in 1989 and at present there are five members in the Secretariat, apart from the General Secretary. One of the members will be joining the Centre after the Party Plenum. So there are 13 comrades to discharge various responsibilities at the Centre.
1.22 While reviewing the implementation of the decisions of the Salkia Plenum, at the 14th Congress, we had concluded that it is not realistic to expect all PBMs to function from the Centre and to end dual responsibilities. The leadership of the strong states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura which may include the secretaries of the states or those with major state responsibilities or Chief Ministers cannot be expected to work from the Centre as a Polit Bureau member. In a multinational and diverse country like India, it is necessary to have a Polit Bureau in which there are members working wholetime at the Centre and also leaders from the states and the strong movements. At the same time, an effective Centre requires an increased number of PBMs for central work and there should be a preponderance of PBMs working from the Centre. It is with this perspective that efforts were made to increase the number of PBMs at the Centre. After the 17th Congress there were six PBMs at the Centre and this has now gone up to 8 out of a 16 member PB. It is necessary to ensure that all the 8 PBMs function from the Centre.
1.23 A running thread of the reviews of the working of the Centre in the past two decades have concluded that the Party Centre is able to respond to immediate political developments and set out the stand of the Party. It has also been promptly responding to any issue which comes up at the state level for which political guidance is required. This is mainly due to the practice of daily meetings of the available PBMs at the Centre. However, the Party Centre has not been able to monitor the decisions on organisation and to intervene whenever needed on organisational matters in time. The other weakness which was noted earlier was the failure to periodically review the work of the all India mass organisations by the Polit Bureau and the Central Committee. This was sought to be corrected. The Central Committee did conduct a review of work on the trade union front, the kisan and agricultural workers front between the 17th and the 18th Congresses. It also adopted the document on the Party’s Perspective on Women’s Issues and the Tasks and a document on the Student Front: Policy and Tasks. But it has so far failed to adopt a basic document on the tasks on the youth front.
1.24 The Party Centre has to ensure that there is a periodical review of the work in the various mass fronts submitted by the sub-committees/fraction committees. The direction given in this regard in successive Party Congresses must be implemented seriously.
1.25 There has been progress in the setting up of departments and sub-committees working from the Centre in the past decade. The agit-prop department and the international department are functioning on a regular basis. The education sub-committee has also functioned well and has organized more central Party schools in the period 2005 to 2014.
1.26 There has been a more systematic functioning of the sub-committees of the Central Committee and the all India fraction committees. At present there are 10 sub-committees and 29 all India fraction committees. Committees for minority affairs, dalit affairs and on disability were set up to provide direction for work in these new areas and platforms.
1.27 The improvement to be made in the work of the Party Centre and the Polit Bureau should be seen in the context of the conclusion arrived at in the Central Committee review of the Lok Sabha election which has been endorsed in the political-organisational report of the 21st Congress. The responsibility for the failure to expand the Party’s political influence, increase its organisational strength and develop its mass base has been primarily of the Polit Bureau and the central leadership. The work of the Polit Bureau and the Party Centre must be seen in this context.
1.28 What needs to be done to improve the work of the Party Centre and the Polit Bureau? One of the criticisms made by the states in their replies to the questionnaire is that the Polit Bureau has not done enough to initiate and develop all India movements and struggles. Further, there is need for more participation by central leaders in the campaigns, struggles and movements in the states. These weaknesses have to be accepted and steps taken to overcome them.
1.29 There is a lack of regular review of the work of the Polit Bureau members at the Party Centre. Such a review should be undertaken on the basis of which their work and style of functioning can be improved. There is need for ensuring better cohesion and discipline in the light of the incidents of leakages of discussions in the PB and CC. The Polit Bureau and the CC should consciously combat trends of federalism, subjectivism and liberalism.
1.30 The following steps need to be taken at the Party Centre:
1. More participation by central leaders in campaigns, struggles and movements in the states.
2. The Party Centre should monitor implementation of organisational decisions and intervene wherever necessary.
3. Conduct periodical review of the work of the mass organisations in the Central Committee.
4. Make schooling on a permanent basis with the setting up of the Central School at the forthcoming Surjeet Bhawan.
5. Strengthen the Centre with equipped cadres to man various departments.
6. The Centre should pay more attention to the priority states and meet the requirements of the Hindi-speaking states.
Priority States
1.31 While implementing the decisions of the 17th Congress in 2002, the Central Committee selected Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh as priority states to concentrate efforts for expansion. The aim was that the Party Centre and the concerned state committees should give more attention and the state committees should mobilize all their resources and make planned efforts to carry out specific tasks for expansion of the Party on a time bound basis. It was also decided that the state committees should select certain districts as priority districts and mass fronts as priority fronts for concentrating efforts for expansion. Adequate number of cadres should be selected and deployed. The PB, the Central Secretariat members and CC members, who were given responsibilities in the priority states, attended the state committee meetings regularly and also attended some district committee, sub-committee and fraction meetings. The state committees made plans and some efforts were made to implement them.
1.32 However, the review of experience of the past 13 years in implementing the concept of priority states shows that no worthwhile progress was made in concentrating efforts and resources. Though some attention was given by the Party Centre, it was not sufficient. Nor much effort was made by the all India mass organisation centres to concentrate in these states. The states concerned were also not able to concentrate on the selected priority districts and fronts and deploy sufficient number of cadres in new areas and fronts.
1.33 The concept of priority states was introduced in order to help overcome the uneven development of the Party by ensuring expansion in selected states outside the three strong states. The Central Committee should on the basis of the experience gained and considering the potential of the Party to grow revise the list of priority states. The PB & CC should rework the plan to concentrate more attention and resources in these states. This should include getting the all India mass organisation centres to also devote attention to these states.
Hindi-Speaking States
1.34 After the Salkia Plenum direction for advancing work in the Hindi-speaking states, there was some progress in the 1980s. However, that ran out of momentum. The total Party membership in all the Hindi-speaking states put together in 2004 was 37,885; the combined membership of all the mass organisations was 16,16,123. Ten years later the Party membership is 50,836 and the mass organisation membership is 26,10,609. The Party membership increased by 34.2 per cent and the mass organisations’ membership by 61.5 per cent.
1.35 This however does not reveal the true picture of the state of the Party and the democratic movement in the Hindi region. The increase in Party membership and membership of mass organisations does not reflect in the Party’s growth and its mass influence. The period from the 1990s saw the rise of majority communalism and the politics of caste appeal in a big way. The Party and the Left suffered adversely in this process. Only in Rajasthan could the Party make some advance on the basis of the peasant struggles and the kisan movement. There has been some limited growth in pockets of Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Haryana. In the two big states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, there is stagnation in the former and decline in the latter. The electoral alliances with the major regional parties have adversely affected the independent growth of the Party in these two states.
1.36 Progress was registered in setting up the state centres and strengthening them. However, the functioning at the level of the district committees is weak and this weakness is reflected at the lower levels upto the branch functioning. Priority should be to concentrate on strengthening selected district centres and planning the work of the Party and the mass organisations in those districts.
1.37 The Party Centre has to devote more time and resources for helping the development of the organisation in the Hindi-speaking states and assisting them in conducting mass movements on class and social issues. Steps such as periodic meetings of state secretaries were also not conducted regularly. Such meetings were held from 2006 to 2010 and this tapered off.
1.38 The emphasis on the independent activities of the Party and united Left action should provide the basis for overcoming the political-organisational weaknesses. But it is also necessary to step up the independent political activities and take the initiative to conduct class and mass struggles on a sustained basis. There has to be the emphasis on taking up local issues for struggle. The taking up of social issues and the ideological struggle should be given priority. Concerted effort should be there to develop the student organisation which is languishing except in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
1.39 There are ten Hindi states and each has its distinct social, economic and political evolution. These must be taken into account while drawing up plans in each state to develop the Party and the mass organisations. In all the states priority should be given to develop the student front. In some, the trade union front, has to be given priority. Overall the development of the class and mass struggles in the rural areas by organising the rural poor is the key to expanding the mass base of the Party. Certain urban centres may be selected for concentrated attention.
1.40 The Party Centre should organise workshops for training cadres to take up social issues and for conducting organisational work. The Party Centre has to organise schools for the cadres of the Hindi-speaking states working on various fronts. When the permanent Party school is established, this must be part of the regular work of the central school. There should be a central mechanism set up for publication and distribution of Party literature and campaign material in Hindi. Meetings of the secretaries of the Hindi states should be held twice a year to monitor the work and take new organisational initiatives.
State Committees
1.41 There are 23 state committees and 3 state organizing committees. The state organizing committees are Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Goa and Manipur where Party membership is below 1,000 each.
1.42 The state committee is the highest unit of the Party at the state level and is responsible for building the Party and mass fronts in the state. The state committees should intervene in all developments in the economy, politics and society in the state. The state committee is responsible for conducting ideological struggle against anti-Marxist and non-Marxian ideologies. It is the responsibility of the state committee to prepare plans for the expansion of the Party and mass fronts and oversee the implementation of the plans at lower levels. The state committee should also guide and supervise the recruitment of wholetimers, their deployment into specific areas and fronts and monitor their work. The state committee should also guide and lead the district and intermediate committees and the branches. The state committee should organize political education classes for the Party members in the state.
1.43 All state committees have reported that their meetings are held regularly.
1.44 There is no team work in the state Centres of many states. There is shortage of number of state secretariat members working from the state Centre. Only 14 have more than five state secretariat members working from the Party and mass front Centres. Sufficient number of state secretariat members are not available at the state Centre in other states.
1.45 In some weaker states, the state committees are not able to tackle organizational problems in important districts. Problems of factionalism, individualism and other violations of democratic centralism are allowed to continue and accumulate, creating a deadlock in the overall functioning. In some places, the functioning of the district secretary or the differences among state committee members of that district are the cause for factionalism in that district.
1.46 One of the problems is that the importance of a functioning state Centre with a team of comrades working collectively, intervening in all important political issues, monitoring the implementation of the work plan, giving guidance on organizational matters is still not fully grasped and put into practice. Here the role of the state secretary is crucial. In many states, daily meeting of the available state secretariat members, or on alternate days, is not taking place. It is the responsibility of the state secretary to take the initiative in strengthening the collective functioning of the state Centre, state secretariat and state committee. Each state committee should review its functioning and immediate corrective steps should be taken.
District Committees
1.47 There are 285 district committees (apart from district organising committees). The Central Committee issued guidelines for the constitution of the district committees and intermediate committees in 2004. (See Appendix-IV).
1.48 The district committee plays an important role in building Party and mass fronts, organizing agitations and struggles, political-ideological work among the masses, guiding and leading intermediate committees and Party branches. In West Bengal, Kerala, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamilnadu, district committees are functioning properly and regularly, compared to many other district committees in weaker states. A district Centre with the secretary and one or two district secretariat members attending regularly is absent in many places. District committee meetings are held in a haphazard manner with only few hours devoted for the meetings. Much of the time is taken up in reporting of the state committees and fixing quotas and decisions to be implemented. There is no proper collective functioning in many places. Many district committees are not taking initiative in taking up the issues of the people and building agitations and struggles in a consistent manner.
Intermediate Committees
1.49 Intermediate committees are committees in between district committees and branches. The state committees can decide the various Party committees that can be set up between the primary unit (branch) and the district committee, subject to the rules framed by the Central Committee in this regard. In Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal where there is more Party membership, two level committees are formed in between district committees and branches. Local committees are formed just above the branches and zonal/area committees are formed above the local committees. In other states, the situation varies in different states. Different names are also given to intermediate committees.
1.50 Local committees play an important role in activising Party members and Party branches. They can also play a crucial role in building mass fronts and activising their local units. The functioning of the local committees should be reviewed by the district committee every year in order to activise Party members and branches.
1.51 The maximum number of district committee members varies in the states. So also in the intermediate committees. The number of Party members under local committees and zonal/area committees also varies widely.
1.52 There is no common standard in the number of members in district committees and other intermediate committees. There is also no uniformity in the number of members under district committees and under intermediate committees. The nomenclature given to intermediate committees is different in different states and even in one state there are different names. The Central Committee should issue broad guidelines regarding the number of members in district committees and intermediate committees and the number of Party members and units under these committees.
Party Branches
1.53 The 20th Congress, in order to improve the functioning of the Party branches, gave the following directives: “1) The branches should hold at least 12 meetings in a year. 2) The higher committee should conduct yearly review of the branches at the time of the renewal of Party membership. 3) The district committees should hold periodical meetings of the branch secretaries and should make concrete plans for training branch secretaries to make them politically and organizationally capable of discharging their responsibilities.”
1.54 There are approximately 90,000 branches at present. By a conservative estimate, 50 per cent of the branches are inactive. We had set out the norm that branches should meet at least once a month i.e. 12 times a year. In Kerala, 63 per cent of the branches held meetings more than 12 times in 2014. In West Bengal and Tripura, majority of the branches held meetings more than six times a year. In all other states, majority of the branches held meetings only between 1-6 times. In many states, there were many branches which did not hold any meetings at all in 2014.
1.55 The direction given by the 20th Congress to review the functioning of the Party branches at the time of renewal of Party membership was implemented in Assam, Haryana, Kerala, Telangana, Tripura and Uttarakhand. In West Bengal and Tamilnadu, majority of the district committees had reviewed the functioning of the Party branches. In other states, review is not done and where it is done, it is done only in a casual manner. Mass front responsibilities are not assigned to the Party members by the Party branches in five states. Though mass front responsibilities are assigned to the Party members in other states, there is no proper monitoring of the work of the Party members in many states. In most of the states, branches do not make any plan for expansion of the Party’s influence among the masses. Some states reported that though they made plans, they were not properly implemented in many places.
1.56 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 to carry out political campaigns among the people to rally the different classes and sections of people. The Party branch should organize auxiliary group units by enrolling the militants who participate in mass struggles and political work.
1.57 A major question is how to make the primary unit have live links with the people and function actively as a political-organizational unit of the Party. The branch secretary has a key role to play. Training and equipping branch secretaries has to be a priority task. The intermediate committees and their members should be made politically and organizationally capable of activising the branches. The district/intermediate committees must regularly hold meetings of branch secretaries for this purpose.
1.58 At present, the maximum number of Party members in a branch is fixed as 15. The minimum number of members for forming a branch is fixed by state committees and the minimum numbers are different in different states. No change is needed in the maximum numbers fixed. The main effort should be to activise the branches and activise the Party members. The state and district committees can decide the area of a branch. It can be decided based on the requirements of building mass movements and political work.
1.59 Revitalising branch functioning has to be one of the priority tasks for launching mass struggles and doing political-ideological work among the masses. The directions given by the 20th Congress are still valid and they have to be strictly implemented.
Levy and Fund Collection
1.60 Adequate funds are necessary for carrying out the multifarious activities of the Party. The sources of income of the Party are membership fee, levy from Party members and collection of funds from the public. The membership fee collected from the members by the branches or units is deposited with the Central Committee.
1.61 The Party Constitution stipulates that every member of the Party must pay a monthly levy as laid down by the Central Committee. Recently, the Central Committee has revised the levy rates. The Party Constitution states that if a member has failed to deposit his/her levy within three months after it is due, then his/her name is to be removed from the Party rolls.
1.62 Most of the state committees state that a large section of comrades do not pay their levy as per the rates fixed by the Central Committee. Some state committees are making efforts to collect levy as per CC rates. The situation varies from state to state. Except in the case of wholetimers and members of the special units, in general, levy is collected yearly at the time of renewal. Many state committees state that members earning higher income are not paying levy as per CC rates. Some state committees complained that a large number of Party members do not reveal their real income. Tamilnadu state committee states that, in general, only one or two per cent of the members pay levy as per CC rates. The situation is slightly better in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, but the levy collection has not reached the desired level. The low political-ideological level of the Party members and the level of their commitment to the Party are reflected in the shortcomings in the payment of levy to the Party. The payment of levy as per the CC rates should be enforced.
1.63 The reports from states show that the manner of distribution of the levy amount collected from Party members among different units such as branch, local committee, area/zonal committee, district committee and state committee differs from state to state. The proportion in which the levy amount is distributed also differs from state to state.
1.64 The levy collected should be distributed among all the Party units. CC should make appropriate guidelines for this. It is also necessary to ensure collection of levy amount from Party members as per rates fixed by CC.
1.65 Some of the state committees collect funds from the masses. Though quite a few do not do it regularly. Wherever mass collection is organized, the Party is getting good response. The Party units should collect Party funds every year. Fund collection should be planned as a political-organisational work and should be collected mainly from the common people. Kerala and Tripura reported that more than 80 per cent of the fund is collected from the masses. But some state committees’ proportion of fund collected from the masses is less than the fund collected from selected individuals. The norm should be at least 70 per cent of the funds collected should be from the people.
1.66 The experience in states where funds are collected regularly show that the common people are generously contributing. The weakness in fund collection also reflects the overall weakness of the Party. If the Party is inactive, does not take up the issues of the common people and fails to make appropriate political intervention, the people may not contribute. The task before such units is to win the confidence of the common people through sustained activities and taking up their issues and making appropriate political intervention in the political developments of the concerned state.
To sum up:
1.67 Adopt mass line and restore living links with the people. Change style of functioning. Leading cadres should participate directly in mass contact programmes, fund collections and meeting different sections of the people.
1.68 The Party Centre has to be strong and effective to ensure that the political-organisational line is implemented. For this there should be more participation by central leaders in campaigns and movements in the states; the Party Centre should monitor implementation of organisational decisions and conduct periodic review of the work of the mass organisations in the Central Committee and recruit equipped cadres to man various departments.
1.69 Prepare revised list of priority states. Plan for adequate attention and resources from Party Centre. In each state, priority districts/areas and fronts should be decided and plans made for deployment of cadres and expansion.
1.70 The Hindi-speaking states are crucial for the all India expansion of the Party. More attention is to be paid to develop class and mass struggles, particularly of the rural poor. The neglect in taking up social issues must be corrected. Priority should be accorded for taking up of social issues and ideological struggles. Importance should be given for developing the student front in the Hindi region. Party Centre has to take up certain specific measures for helping the development of the Party and the movement in the Hindi states.
1.71 Accord priority to activise branches so that they can conduct political-organisational work among the people. Renewal of membership and review of work done should be conducted by the branch. District committees should Train and equip branch secretaries and hold regular meetings with them.
1.72 Enforce the payment of levy as per the CC rates. There should be no adjustment or elasticity in realizing levy. Distribution of levy amount to various committees should be fixed. Party Committees should rely on regular fund collections from the masses. Mass collection should constitute at least 70 per cent of the total fund collected.
II
Quality Membership for a Revolutionary Party
1.73 The crucial factor in building a revolutionary Party organisation is the quality of the Party membership. It is only a Party membership imbued with the requisite political ideological level and working dedicatedly under the organisational discipline that can discharge the responsibilities of building a Communist Party with a strong mass base. The Party membership must be drawn from the best elements of the basic classes and socially oppressed sections.
1.74 The organisation must also have sufficient cadres drawn from the basic classes and oppressed sections if it is to conduct the class and mass struggles in a determined way.
1.75 The Salkia Plenum had given a call to build a mass revolutionary party. The declining level of quality of Party members has negated the realization of a mass revolutionary party. What has come into being is more like a mass Party without much of the revolutionary content.
1.76 A large number of Party members do not possess the minimum qualification for Party membership. This is mainly due to defects in the recruitment process of Party members, for which the responsibility lies with the Party organisation.
1.77 The Central Committee adopted guidelines on Party membership recruitment, enrolment of candidate members and auxiliary group members in December 2002 for improving the quality of Party membership (see Appendix-V). Though the practice of admitting candidate members from auxiliary groups is implemented in most of the states, majority of auxiliary groups are not functioning regularly and they are not guided properly by higher committees. Deficiencies exist in giving political and organizational education to auxiliary group and candidate members. So it is at this level of auxiliary groups that defective recruitment takes place as there is no training or evaluation of auxiliary group members before recruiting them as candidate members.
1.78 The loose membership recruitment and the lack of political and organizational training of the auxiliary group members and candidate members is the main reason for the low political-organisational level of Party members. A large number of Party members do not attend Party branch meetings, Party classes or participate in political campaigns or agitations and struggles. The situation varies from state to state.
1.79 The increasing droppage of Party members and fluctuations in Party membership also show a loose membership. The increasing droppage also indicates the low level of political consciousness of Party members, their inactivity and lack of commitment. At the time of the 20th Congress, all-India average percentage of droppage of full Party members was 5.63 and candidate members was 12.45. The droppage of Party members and candidate members increased and at present, the percentage of droppage of full Party members is 7.9 and candidate members is 17.5.
1.80 Expansion of the Party cannot be equated with just expansion of Party membership without taking into account the quality of Party members. A key task would be to increase the political-ideological level of Party members and improve the quality of membership. Immediate corrective action is required. There has to be a basic change in how Party members are recruited and trained. The main criteria for Party membership has to be participation in the class and mass struggles.
1.81 In order to improve the quality of the present Party members, a systematic and well-planned scrutiny of Party membership will have to be undertaken. All those whose political consciousness, mass activity, organizational discipline etc fall too short of the minimum required standards of a Party member, should be dropped. This, of course, has to be carried out by the 2017 renewals after a thorough self-critical report of the Party branch attended by a higher committee member with reference to the work and conduct of each individual member in the light of new organizational directions. The CC guidelines issued in 2002 on recruitment of Party members are still valid and need to be strictly implemented to improve the quality of Party members.
1.82 The Party membership should be renewed only on the fulfillment of the following tasks:
1.83 1) Payment of membership fee and levy. 2) Regular attendance in branch meetings. 3) Satisfactory participation in Party classes, political campaigns and in agitations and struggles. 4) Becoming a member and active participant in mass front work unless exempted by the Party. 5) Regular reading of Party organs and subscribing to them.
Class Composition
1.84 The figures of the class composition of the Party members show that at the all-India level, 81.3 per cent of the Party members are from working class, agricultural labourers and poor peasants on the basis of class origin. The percentage of Party members from these classes is 62.93 in West Bengal, 67.8 in Tripura, 66.38 in Odisha, 66.78 in Himachal Pradesh, 68.02 in Uttar Pradesh and all other states have more than 70 per cent. The working class constitutes the largest percentage of Party members in Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Tamilnadu.
1.85 There is imbalance between class composition of the total Party membership and the composition of the state and district committee members. The class composition of the total state committee members from working class, agricultural labour and poor peasants is only 38.27 per cent and the district committee members is 58.32 per cent. In the Central Committee, 26.47 per cent members are from these classes.
Social Composition
1.86 At the all-India level, 20.32 per cent of Party members are from Scheduled Castes, 7.1 per cent are from Scheduled Tribes, 9.7 per cent are from Muslim minorities and 5.06 per cent are from Christian minorities.
1.87 There is extreme mismatch between social composition of the total Party members and the composition of the state committee and district committee members. The Scheduled Caste composition of the state committee members is only 8.47 per cent and district committee members is only 15.45 per cent. The Scheduled Tribe composition of the state committee members is 5.77 per cent and district committee members is 6.13 per cent. 5.77 per cent of the state committee members and 7.06 per cent of the district committee members are from Muslim minorities.
1.88 For instance, in Punjab, 44.5 per cent of the Party members are from Scheduled Castes, but in the state committee there are only 5 members (13.9 per cent) from the Scheduled Castes. In West Bengal, 23.1 per cent of the Party members are from Scheduled Castes but there are only 4 members (4.76 per cent) in the state committee from Scheduled Castes. In Andhra Pradesh 27.5 per cent of Party members are from Scheduled Castes and 9 members (14.6 per cent) are in the state committee.
1.89 The same mismatch exists in the case of scheduled tribes and minorities.
1.90 The Central and state committees should take appropriate organizational measures to improve the class and social composition of the district, state and central committee members.
Women in Party
1.91 Building a strong all India Communist Party requires a substantial number of women joining the Party, since women constitute a large part of the rural and urban proletariat. From the 1967 Tasks on Party Organisation, we have been stressing the importance of recruiting women from the basic classes and from the militant activists in the mass organisations. At the time of the 15th Congress (1995), the proportion of women Party members was only 5 per cent of the total membership. Some progress has been made since then but it is exceedingly slow and not satisfactory. Two decades after, in 2015, the proportion of women has risen to 15.6 per cent. This means that over the period of 20 years there is an increase of 10 percentage points which works out to an average of 0.5 percent every year.
1.92 When we analyse the state-wise position of women Party members, it is found that only five states have a percentage of women Party members of 20 per cent and above. These states are Tripura (24.6 per cent), Karnataka (24.4 per cent), Assam (20.2 per cent) and Delhi (26.4 per cent). Andhra Pradesh also can be put in this category with 19.6 per cent.
1.93 The two big states of Kerala and West Bengal have 15.9 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.
1.94 Some of the major states had taken some steps to recruit more women in the Party. Kerala had decided that there should be at least two women members in every branch. This has been implemented, but not fully. In West Bengal, it was decided that there should be at least one women in a branch and if this is not possible, each branch has to recruit at least two women in the auxiliary group. This has been implemented partially so far. There are industries where women constitute the majority of the workers such as the traditional industries like coir and cashew in Kerala, plantation workers, garment workers and so on. There are strong unions, yet the Party membership of women workers in these sectors is very small. Party recruitment from organised scheme workers, such as anganwadi, is negligible.
1.95 Given the experience of the tardy recruitment of women and even resistance to it, it is necessary to take some organisational steps to ensure recruitment of women into the Party. We should set at the all India level a target of reaching 25 per cent women membership in the total membership to be achieved in three years time i.e. from 2016 to 2018 renewal of membership.
1.96 It will be necessary for the state committees to identify where there are substantial number of women in the trade unions, agricultural workers organisations and other mass fronts. There must be a planned effort to recruit women activists who meet the minimum requirements. If required, women auxiliary groups should be set up to facilitate this process.
1.97 Apart from the problem of recruitment of women in the Party, the second issue is about the development and promotion of women cadres and their representation in the Party committees. As per the replies filed by the state committees there are 11 states where women members in the state committee are below 10 per cent of the membership. As far as district committees are concerned there are 12 states where women membership is below an average of 10 per cent of all the district committee members.
1.98 Here too without making a planned effort there can be no increase in the women representatives in the committees. Even in the strong states, except Tripura, there is a lag in the representation of women in the higher committees. Therefore, the state committees will have to fix certain quota for women in the different levels of committees at the time of the next conferences. There cannot be a uniform quota for all states as the number of women Party members, availability of women cadres and the participation of women in the class and mass organisations differs from state to state. The Polit Bureau and the CC should ensure that reasonable quotas are set before the conferences.
Youth Composition
1.99 It was noted in the Lok Sabha election review of the 21st Congress that there is a decline in the appeal of the Party among the youth. According to the age composition, at the time of the 19th Congress, 16.8 per cent of the Party membership was 30 years and below; this went up to 20 per cent at the time of the 21st Congress. But in numerous states, a declining trend is visible. The composition of young members (31 years and below) is not satisfactory or poor in a number of states. If this category is below 20 per cent of the total membership i.e. at least one-firth of the total, it should be considered as not satisfactory.
1.100 Among the strong states, Kerala (22.7 per cent), Telangana (25 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (24.6 per cent) has satisfactory youth composition. Tripura needs to improve its age composition with below 31 years category being 18.3 per cent. Given the big mass base of the Party, there should be more youth membership. In West Bengal, the youth composition is unsatisfactory with 13.5 per cent of young members.
1.101 In the Hindi states and in those weaker states where there is a low youth composition there are weak youth and student fronts or their virtual absence. For instance, the better youth composition in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan reflects growth in the student front. The lack of influx of youth members in the Party and in the various level committees has also contributed to the stagnation in the Party organisation and the lack of initiative in organisational work. The lack of appeal for the Party and the Left can be attributed partly due to the loss of the ideological appeal of socialism. In its place youth have been attracted by identity politics, communal appeal or depoliticisation.
1.102 The Party’s programme and campaigns must be specially oriented to issues and concerns of the young people. Both the student and youth fronts are not showing progress. It is necessary to concretize the issues and demands to be taken up by the student and youth fronts. One particular issue is how the student organisation can work amongst the students studying in the private and self financing institutions. More attention has to be paid to Party building in the student and youth fronts and focused recruitment to improve the youth composition.
Party Cadre
1.103 There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in the Party about who is a cadre and what is cadre policy. Cadre include the members of the Party committees at different levels and the Party comrades deputed to work as functionaries in mass fronts at a certain level and for specific work in certain fields where the Party makes its intervention. The wholetimers are those who are the full time functionaries of the Party from amongst the cadres. They contribute their whole time and energies to the collective work of the Party.
1.104 The Party needs adequate number of cadres at all levels of the Party, mass fronts and institutions and bodies such as state governments, Parliament, state legislative assemblies, local bodies, cooperatives etc. The Party is facing shortage of equipped cadre at different levels and areas. The Party needs adequate number of wholetimers because without full time cadres, various activities of different fronts cannot be efficiently carried out only on the basis of part-time functionaries, however much their number may be. If the work has to be stable and planned and even to allot and check-up the work among the part-time functionaries, it is essential that the Party should have sufficient number of full time cadres. Recruitment of wholetime cadres must be on the basis of a collective and objective assessment of the capabilities of a cadre.
1.105 The Central Committee issued guidelines to all states in December 2005 for adopting and implementing a cadre policy. The answers to the questionnaire state that Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have formulated cadre policies and are making efforts to implement them. All other states have wholetimers at the state and district levels but their recruitment, deployment into specific area, monitoring their work and payment of wages are not done on the basis of any specific plan or policy.
1.106 In most of the states, review and assessment of the work of the wholetimers is not properly done. Only a few states have proper plans to recruit new cadres and more women cadres. Many states have not taken any special initiative to recruit cadre from the basic classes and from adivasis, dalits and minorities. The steps taken in this direction by some states are inadequate.
1.107 The system of payment of wages to the wholetimers is defective in many states and districts. The wages paid to the wholetimers differ from state to state and in states, from state Centre to districts and also from district to district and lower level units. The amount varies from Rs. 500 to Rs. 15,000. Both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state committees are following definite policies in payment of wages to the wholetimers. Telangana state committee is paying a monthly wage of Rs. 13,100 including house rent to a wholetimer living in towns who has spouse and two children. The wholetimer living in villages is paid Rs. 11,000. An unmarried wholetimer is paid Rs. 6,000 in towns, including room rent, and in villages Rs. 5,500. Some state committees have collected funds deposited in bank and interest is used for payment of wages to wholetimers. Delhi state committee has collected a fund of Rs. 1.5 crore. Rs 70 lakh was collected and placed in fixed deposits by the Maharashtra state committee.
1.108 At present, there are 10,378 wholetimers throughout the country. The class and social composition of the wholetimers shows that there is a mismatch between the class composition and social composition of total Party members and wholetimers in the case of many states. Special attention should be given to recruit wholetimers from basic classes, dalits, adivasis, minorities and women. The higher committees should take appropriate organizational measures to improve the class and social composition of cadres.
1.109 The aging of Party cadres is another serious issue. Many state committees have noted that the Party is not able to attract wholetimers from students and youth. This has wide ranging adverse impact on the functioning of the Party. There should be a retirement policy and retirement benefits for the wholetimers worked out in each state.
1.110 In order to ensure the promotion of young cadres and change the aging profile of committees, Central and state committees should set out a criteria of average age of the committees at different levels. The other method is to ensure a quota for young cadres upto a certain age being inducted in the committees at the time of the conferences.
1.111 The existence of factional tendencies in certain states have created difficulties for making objective evaluation of cadres and giving promotion to cadres. In certain states, cadres are eliminated through factional elections. All these wrong trends have to be curbed firmly.
1.112 The answers from states show that the wages of wholetimers in many states are very low and not paid regularly. Payment of adequate wages is necessary to ensure recruitment of capable cadres from basic classes, adivasis, dalits, minorities and women. The wages of a cadre should be fixed considering the living expenses of a common man in that state for a person, spouse and dependent children.
1.113 State committees should organize collection of wholetimers fund every year for payment of wages to the cadres. While the stronger states can pay more, all the weaker states must at least pay the minimum wage notified in that state. If any state committee finds it difficult, despite its efforts to collect funds, the Central Committee should provide subsidies to that state committee for a specific period.
1.114 The Party has to recruit thousands of new cadres and train hundreds of efficient mass leaders. The cadres and leaders must be well-versed in Marxism-Leninism, politically farsighted, devoted and competent in their work, full of the spirit of self sacrifice, capable of tackling problems of their own, bold in the midst of difficulties and loyal and devoted to the class and the Party. This is an important task for achieving expansion of the Party. A time bound plan should be made in states for recruitment and training of cadres. A system of training and retraining of wholetime cadres has to be evolved.
To sum up:
1.115 Correct the approach of recruitment of Party members. No loose recruitment; ensure auxiliary group functioning. Maintain quality of membership; cleanse Party of inactive members. Renewal of Party membership to be based on five criteria.
1.116 In class composition, take steps to rectify the imbalance between the composition of basic classes in the total Party membership with the composition of the state and district committee members. There should be planning and steps to promote cadres from the working class, agricultural labour and poor peasants to the leading committees.
1.117 Similarly, the mismatch between the social composition of the Party membership and the composition of the state committees and district committee members should be corrected. In each concrete case where such mismatch exists, there should be planned steps for increasing the representation of cadres from women, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and minorities.
1.118 To increase the number of women in the Party membership at the all India level there should be target for reaching 25 per cent women membership in three years time from 2016 to 2018. States should make planned efforts to recruit women activists. In each state there should also be concrete steps taken for increasing the representation of women in the various committees.
1.119 The youth composition of the Party has to be improved particularly in the states where it is below 20 per cent. Party’s programme and campaigns must be specially oriented to issues and concerns of the young people. More attention to be paid to the student and youth organisations and to Party building within them. Adopt a document on the youth front within a year of the Plenum.
1.120 There should be a cadre policy to be implemented in the states. Proper recruitment of wholetimers on the basis of the political-organisational level should be done, minimum wages for wholetimers should be ensured, time bound plan for recruitment and training of cadres should be made. Measures for promotion of younger cadres should be taken.
III
A Party Based on Democratic Centralism
1.121 The structure of the Party is based on and its internal life is guided by the principles of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism means centralized leadership based on inner-Party democracy. Free and frank discussions within the Party unit on all questions affecting the Party, its policy and work is the essence of inner-Party democracy. The democracy of the Communist Party is a democracy of vigorous common action, i.e., a democracy in which the members of the Party not only elect the leadership and discuss the policies but also take active part in the work of the Party. Democratic centralism means a true synthesis, a fusion of centralism and democracy.
1.122 The corrosion in applying democratic centralism and the violation of the principles of democratic centralism are manifesting themselves in various ways. There is in some places over-centralism. Inner Party democracy is practiced only formally in some committees. The answers to the questionnaire from states show that various types of shortcomings, deviations and violations are existing in most of the states at different levels. Factionalism, careerism, federalism, individualism, bureaucratic attitude, ignoring collective functioning, weaknesses in not encouraging criticism from below, electing persons on the basis of group allegiance, ignoring mistakes of comrades to gather support for factional purposes, factional division of the Party committees etc are evident in some states.
1.123 Factional tendencies weaken collective functioning of the Party. Any rivalry for power or any contest for supremacy within the Party is not compatible with the fundamental principles of democratic centralism.
1.124 Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Punjab are states where factionalism existed over a period of time. In Kerala, there were successful efforts to check and end factionalism. However, some vestiges remain. The Polit Bureau and the state leadership should jointly strive to ensure that as per the norms of democratic centralism, factional tendencies are combated.
1.125 In Karnataka, Odisha and Punjab, given the past legacy of factionalism, there is still no complete unity in the state leadership. The experience of these states shows that factionalism at the level of the state leadership percolates down to the lower units. It is important to ensure the unity of the state secretariat in these states and to foster collective functioning. The Polit Bureau has to ensure this process. Factional tendencies are present at district and lower levels in many states. The Party has to determinedly fight and eradicate factional tendencies in the Party in order to strengthen democratic centralism and collective functioning.
1.126 Though decisions are taken collectively in states, check-up of the implementation is not properly done in most of the states. The practice of reporting from higher committees to lower committees is happening in most of the states but reporting from lower committees to higher committees is weak and in the case of some committees, such a practice is non-existent. The flow of information from top to bottom and bottom to top is necessary for strengthening the collective functioning of the Party. All Central Committee decisions and reports are explained in state committees either by PB or CC members. There is weakness in reporting the Central Committee and state committee reports and decisions to the lower committees.
1.127 Many CC documents were not properly reported to committees and Party members in many states. The weakness in the reporting from top to bottom and bottom to top should be concretely identified and rectified for strengthening the collective and efficient functioning of the Party.
1.128 Some committees have reported that free and frank discussion is not taking place in Party committees. Federal and liberal tendencies are existing in many states at different levels. Liberal tendencies are more prevalent than federal tendencies.
1.129 To the question whether criticism and self-criticism are encouraged at different levels in the Party, most of the states answered that criticisms take place in committees but seldom self-criticism. Self-criticism tends to be more formal than genuine.
1.130 Some state committees have pointed out that there are complaints of bureaucratic behaviour from higher committees and Party leaders. Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura and Tamilnadu reported that there are instances of leakage of inner-Party discussions at the state level to the media. There are some instances of leakage of inner-Party discussion at the PB and CC level.
1.131 All shortcomings, weaknesses and violations of democratic centralism should be identified at each level of the Party and appropriate corrective measures to strengthen democratic centralism should be taken. After the Plenum, committees at all levels should make a serious review of the state of democratic centralism at each level. The strengthening of the collective work in the Party, to a great extent, depends on the success we achieve in this regard.
1.132 Strengthening inner Party democracy is the vital link to improve the present state of affairs. The key to combating many violations of democratic centralism is to institutionalize and strengthen inner-Party democracy. We have to ensure that Party members have the opportunity to participate in policy matters and decision making. The Party Centre and the state committees should regularly issue Party letters which should be circulated to all units on major political developments and important Party decisions. This should be discussed in the lower units and their feedback obtained. At present, reporting from below is confined to reports of implementation of tasks. This should change and the views of the lower units and Party members should be specifically sought.
Subjectivism
1.133 Subjective understanding leads to wrong estimation of our strength or the enemy’s strength. Subjectivism also leads to individualism. Subjectivism exists at different levels of the Party. Subjective assessments not based on facts come into play at times when decisions on contesting elections are taken, or making assessments of the mood of the people and the election results, and also at times in the assessment and promotion of cadres.
Combat Liberalism
1.134 Liberalism is an opportunist trend that weakens democratic centralism and stands for unprincipled compromises on political, ideological and organizational matters. A Party member should always adhere to the political-ideological positions and organizational principles and practices of the Party and should wage continuous struggles against all incorrect ideas and actions in order to consolidate the collective life of the Party on correct political-ideological positions, organizational principles and practices.
1.135 Liberalism rejects ideological struggles and stands for unprincipled peace, bringing about political degeneration. A Party member should always come forward to rebut incorrect views and anti-Communist remarks made by others. There are some comrades who fail to confront such remarks and take a liberal attitude as if nothing has happened. It is the duty of every Party member to always uphold the political-ideological positions of the Party.
1.136 Liberalism is manifested in various ways at all levels in the Party. There is increasing erosion in the Communist qualities of Party members. There are instances of tolerating violations of Party discipline committed by an influential leader for the sake of unprincipled peace and compromise. Seventeen states have reported that there are instances of tolerating violations of Party discipline at different levels.
1.137 There are also instances of reluctance or hesitation to investigate complaints of corruption and misuse of positions in the Party or mass fronts which involve persons in leadership positions. This is evident from the fact that the Central Discipline Commission has hardly received any complaints since it was set up.
1.138 Some comrades allow things to drift if such things do not affect them personally, even if such matters adversely affect the work and prestige of the Party. There are also committees which are aware of their shortcomings and mistakes and yet no effort is made to correct them by taking a liberal attitude towards the shortcomings and mistakes.
1.139 A determined struggle has to be launched at all levels against all forms of liberal tendencies in the Party.
Federalism
1.140 The Salkia Plenum had noted that federalism as a trend develops in a situation where there is uneven development in the Party and in a vast multinational country like India. A centralized Party with a unified political line and organisational cohesion is essential to confront the power of the centralized bourgeois-landlord State. The process of building such a Party gets weakened by federalism. The Salkia Plenum had noted the existence of federal trends in the Party organisation and suggested certain steps to counter it.
1.141 Since then, the uneven development of the Party has continued and has even got intensified in certain respects. The three strong states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura saw their position getting further strengthened while the gap vis a vis the other states increased. This in itself creates the grounds for federalism. The fact that the West Bengal Party had to run a state government continuously for 34 years was in itself a unique situation. The exigencies of and the preoccupation with running the state government at times led to the state leadership’s lack of discussion and coordination with the Centre. The fact that there was no comprehensive review of the Left Front government’s functioning at different junctures by the Central Committee testifies to this federal trend.
1.142 The Polit Bureau was unable to intervene at crucial junctures when issues arose in the state regarding policies pursued by the Left Front government. Of course there were occasions when policy matters concerning the Left-led governments were discussed in the Central Committee and placed before the Party Congress as in the 18th Congress “On Certain Policy Issues” and the “Role of the Left-Led Governments in the Present Situation” in the 19th Congress. The Party Centre and the Polit Bureau also contributed to the federal trend by seldom intervening in political or organisational matters in the strong states on its own initiative. Only when any matter was raised by the state concerned did the Centre respond.
1.143 At the state level, there are federal tendencies reported by many states in their replies to the questionnaire. 16 out of 20 district committees in West Bengal have reported federal tendencies exist at different levels. Tamilnadu too has reported that federal tendencies exist in their districts. Some states have reported that certain districts had not implemented the decisions of the state committee or sent regular reports.
1.144 Federalism is also seen in the way many state committees do not send regular reports about the political developments and the organisational activities in their states to the Party Centre. The Polit Bureau and the Central Committee cannot get a full and comprehensive picture of the political developments unless this is done on a regular basis. At present the practice is for the states to send reports at the time of the Central Committee. Even these are sent just on the eve of the meeting or during the meeting itself, thus depriving the Party Centre the chance to study the reports and on that basis of that analysis suggesting any course of action.
1.145 There is a degree of provincialism and localism which has crept into our functioning. There have been instances of leaders at the state level reacting to national developments purely from a state level perspective, missing the all India context. In the steps that we take to strengthen democratic centralism, it is necessary to include the combating of federal trends at all levels to ensure that there is the working of a centralized political-organisational line throughout the country.
1.146 The wrong tendencies like bureaucratism, factionalism, federalism, subjectivism and liberalism are weakening collective work and democratic centralism in the Party. They have to be combated at all levels starting from the top.
Parliamentarism
1.147 A key factor adversely affecting the building of a strong Party organisation on Marxist-Leninist lines is the growing trend of parliamentarism. Parliamentarism is also responsible for the undermining of the proper implementation of the political and organisational tasks set out by the Party. The reports submitted by the State Committees confirm the existence of parliamentarism.
1.148 The states have reported on the various ways parliamentarism has manifested. There is a growing desire among some Party cadres to contest elections. They demand to contest elections in places where there is no basis to contest. When certain cadres have not been allowed to contest, they have expressed their displeasure by not working during the election. In some cases there has been defiance of the Party decision, especially at the level of the local bodies election.
1.149 The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh committees have reported instances of Party candidates spending money and resorting to methods of the bourgeois parties. With the aim of contesting elections, some have indulged in groupism and factional activities. The other aspect of parliamentarism is that elected representatives do not rely on mass struggles or keep in touch with the organized activity of the Party and concentrate only on their electoral constituencies work.
1.150 Parliamentarism has a wider dimension as stated in the 1996 rectification document of the Central Committee:
1.151 “Parliamentarism is a reformist outlook that confines the Party’s activities to electoral work and fosters the illusion that the Party’s advance can be ensured mainly through fighting elections. This leads to the neglect of the work of organizing mass movements, Party building and conducting the ideological struggle. Parliamentary and extra-parliamentary work have to be combined to strengthen the mass movements and the political struggle.”
1.152 The failure to implement certain key tasks is also due to the prevalence of parliamentarism. For instance, as noted in this report elsewhere, the reluctance to take up social issues like dalit oppression and conduct struggles is due to the opportunist fear that it may harm the electoral prospects by antagonizing dominant caste groups. Similarly the class orientation towards the poor peasant-agricultural workers and taking up their issues for struggle is glossed over in order to advance electoral prospects by not disturbing the dominant sections.
1.153 It is therefore essential that the trend of parliamentarism is pinpointed and combated wherever it appears. The Party committees should not give in to subjective assessments about electoral prospects. Often, the higher committees do not intervene to stop candidates being put up indiscriminately despite the poor strength of the organisation or the mass activities. The work of the elected representatives in the local bodies except in the stronger states is not being monitored and supervised by any Party mechanism. The Party therefore does not get the benefit of utilizing the work in the local bodies to help in developing the mass organisations and the Party’s influence. The state committee in the case of members of the legislative assembly and the district committees in the case of the local body representatives must set up a sub committee or mechanism to guide and supervise the work of the representatives of the elected bodies, cooperatives and other institutions.
1.154 Given the growing trend of parliamentarism, we should give primary attention to extra-parliamentary activities. The combination of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary activity should help us to build a powerful movement to build the Left and democratic alternative to the existing bourgeois-landlord order. It is the growing mass movements and mass base which enabled us to increase the representation of the Party in the legislatures. Since the formation of the CPI(M), we have utilised work in the parliamentary forums to strengthen the mass movements and to expand the influence of the Party. It is the correct use, by and large, of these tactics that helped the Party to expand the movement and its influence in the strong states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. But we have not been successful in properly utilizing this approach in other states.
1.155 The experience of running a Left Front government for 34 years and the defeat suffered in the 2011 assembly elections has also lessons for the building of the Party organisation. The reviews conducted so far show that over a period of time, the independent work of the Party and the mass organisations declined and became subordinate to the work of the government and the various elected bodies. There was a relegation of the class and mass struggles which adversely affected the Party organisation and its live links with the people.
1.156 What we have to recognize is that new and major problems have arisen regarding the work in the parliamentary arena. In the last two decades the neo-liberal regime had a direct impact on the political and electoral system. The massive use of money in elections and the running of political parties and the growing corporate style of the election campaign has squeezed the space for the CPI(M) and the Left parties. The massive use of money power and the intertwining of the capitalist class with the bourgeois political parties and their candidates right down to the panchayat elections is posing serious problems for the political advance of the Party. Succumbing to parliamentarism will only further erode the Party organisation in such a situation.
1.157 The only way to counter this neo-liberal politics and money power is to build and strengthen the mass base of the Party which can be done through struggles and movements which alone can raise the political consciousness of the people and enable them to resist the use of money and other inducements. The Party should build a powerful campaign for electoral reforms in which a key demand is the introduction of the proportional representation system. It should utilise the social media and an innovative grass roots campaign to counter the impact of the corporate media.
Rectification
1.158 The Central Committee had adopted two documents on the rectification campaign – one in 1996 and another in 2009. The Party conducted a rectification campaign in 1996-97. The 2009 rectification document, while reviewing the experience of the past twelve years after the adoption of the 1996 document, self-critically admitted that the Party had not been able to conduct the rectification campaign on a continuous and sustained basis. The document also noted that one of the major weaknesses of the earlier campaign was that the rectification process was not adopted from the top, i.e., from the PB and CC. The PB and CC conducted a self-critical examination of its work and functioning on the basis of the 2009 rectification document and the shortcomings and weaknesses were identified. The 2009 document was reported in the state committees and rectification documents were adopted. Though the CC had decided that the process of rectification should be completed in all district committees and lower level committees before the end of June 2010, it was not completed in many district committees and lower level committees.
1.159 The 20th Congress decided to continue the rectification campaign in states covering all Party members and Party committees within a timeframe fixed by the Central Committee. The CC did not fix any time frame for the completion of rectification. The mid-term review report adopted in 2013 gave a direction that the rectification process covering all units and Party members should be completed based on the guidelines prepared by the state committees, at the time of membership scrutiny of 2014. Only some state committees have taken up the rectification campaign during this period. The Kerala state committee prepared a detailed questionnaire covering 31 important areas, held meetings of area committees and district committees and elicited answers on them. Meetings of branches and local committees were also held. It was a one-year long process. The document prepared by the state committee was presented before a state Party Plenum, which adopted a rectification document. Many state committees have not taken up the rectification campaign.
1.160 The answers to the questionnaire reveal that there is no improvement in the overall situation and in certain cases, there is further deterioration. One of the questions asked was whether the Party members adhere to progressive values that include eschewing superstition, casteism, obscurantist customs and patriarchal and feudal outlook to women. Andhra Pradesh state committee states that majority of Party members are not adhering to progressive values. Rajasthan states that the regressive social values, expensive marriage ceremonies, superstition, casteism, obscurantism, patriarchal and feudal outlook to women have increased. The West Bengal state committee reports that all these trends are prevailing in the Party, continuous rectification campaign is going on but not getting expected results. The reports from states show that many of the Party members are not qualitatively different from other people in the society.
1.161 There are instances of complaints about the life style, corrupt practices and persistent violations of Communist norms on the part of certain comrades. The atmosphere created by liberalization policies and the practices of bourgeois-political parties are influencing a section of comrades. It is a fact that Party committees are taking steps to improve the situation and disciplinary actions have been taken against certain wrongdoers. There are reports from many states about complaints of domestic violence against Party members.
1.162 The answers from seven state committees show that there are cases where the assets of Party members are disproportionate to their known sources of income. West Bengal committee states that majority of the district committees have reported that signs of disproportionate assets are there among some comrades.
1.163 Some states report that there are complaints against certain Party members and leaders who have established connections with real estate promoters, contractors and liquor contractors and helping them.
1.164 There are also complaints against Party members about their lavish life style, spending beyond their known sources of income for building houses which are far above the minimum needs required, spending large amounts on weddings of children, organizing festivities on a lavish scale etc. Eight state committees reported about receiving such complaints.
1.165 There are also complaints about the misuse of positions in the Party or mass fronts to enrich oneself. Some state committees have reported about instances of reluctance or hesitation to investigate such cases which involve persons in leadership positions or those who are influential in the Party.
1.166 Disciplinary actions were taken against state committee members, district committee members, zonal/area committee members, local committee members and Party members during this period. The nature of wrongs committed by them include violation of Party decisions, corruption, financial misappropriation, doing real estate business, moral turpitude, working against Party decisions in elections, contesting elections against the Party, anti-Party activities, factionalism, not participating in strikes, joining with the enemies of the Party, extreme drunkenness etc.
1.167 The rectification campaign should be conducted annually along with membership renewal. Each Party committee should present a report to the next higher committee.
To sum up:
1.168 Strengthen inner Party democracy to ensure proper working of democratic centralism. Reporting of Central Committee decisions to be done upto the branch level. Need to combat subjectivism, liberalism, bureaucratism and factionalism. For a Party in a vast and diverse country like India, countering federal trends must be given importance. Need for regular reports from the states about political and organisational developments to the Party Centre.
1.169 Parliamentarism which is growing is responsible for undermining the proper implementation of the political and organisational tasks. Give primacy to extra-parliamentary activities and this should be combined with the use of parliamentary forums and activities to help build a powerful movement. Necessity to counter the neo-liberal politics which has brought in massive misuse of money in elections and the political system. We should build a powerful campaign for electoral reforms and introduction of proportional representation.
1.170 Encourage objective reporting and assessments to check subjectivism. Counter liberalism which tolerates erroneous political and organisational practices and violations of discipline.
1.171 Insist on Party members adhering to progressive values and eschewing obscurantism, casteism and patriarchal outlook. Take action against those who violate communist norms and indulge in corrupt practices. Rectification campaign to be conducted annually along with membership renewal.
IV
Wage The Ideological Struggle
1.172 Ideological struggle, which takes the battle against ruling class ideologies amongst the people is crucial for consolidating the influence of the Party. Unless the people who are drawn into struggles and movements conducted by the Party and mass organizations are also exposed to the ideological campaign of the Party, they cannot become conscious supporters of the Party. The other aspect of ideological work is to raise the ideological level of the Party members. For this, ideological education has to be conducted within the Party and by the Party fractions within the mass organizations. At the present juncture, the revolutionary motivation of cadres can be ensured only by raising their ideological level.
1.173 The ideological struggle requires a continuous struggle against ruling class ideologies. Neo-liberalism is not just in the economic policy sphere, it is a bourgeois class outlook which pervades all spheres, social and cultural. It is necessary to continuously counter the bourgeois ideology expressed through neo-liberal ideas. It is also necessary to wage the ideological struggle against Hindutva and other forms of communalism which are getting embedded in society. This struggle has to be waged by the Party and mass organisations in the social and cultural spheres too. The struggle has to be conducted against narrow identity policies and sectarian ideologies which foster caste prejudices, regional chauvinism and separatism. Party education should equip the cadres to take the ideological issues and struggle to the people.
1.174 The key to revamping and strengthening the Party organisation is the raising of the ideological level of the Party as a whole. Party education should enable cadres to grasp the ideological issues and equip them to take the struggle to the people. The ideological campaign should base itself on the ideological resolution adopted by the 20th Party Congress. The sub-committees and fraction committees should discuss and plan the ideological work to be done by the Party members in the mass fronts.
1.175 The agit-prop committee, the Party education committee and the Paper papers/journals committee should coordinate their work to contribute to the ideological struggle. The Party cadres should be made to understand the distinction between agitation and propaganda on the one hand and ideological struggle and campaign on the other.
1.176 The vision of socialism and how such a socialist society can be achieved in Indian conditions has to be imaginatively spelt out. Propagating the socialist vision in the contemporary and Indian context is particularly important to attract the younger generation.
1.177 A Central Research Institute should be set up which undertakes Marxist research into various aspects of Indian society and provides the ideological support to the Party’s work. The Party at different levels should have a mechanism to interact with intellectuals, cultural activists and other personalities with a progressive outlook.
Party Education
1.178 The task of Party education being imparted to Party members at all levels is an integral part of organisational work. The raising of the political-ideological level of the members is dependent on how they absorb the experience of mass struggles and organisational activities. In this, the quality of Party education imparted is an important factor. Party education has to be regular and systematic for Party cadres at all levels. For the last one decade, we have been stressing on the need to provide minimum education to all Party members. Reports from the states show that we are unable to do so. By and large only 30 to 40 per cent of the Party members are covered by Party classes in the weaker states.
1.179 This is because of the failure to have a systematic set up for Party education and the inactivity of many branches and members in them which leads to their not attending the classes organized for them. We have to insist that there has to be minimum schooling on four subjects – Party Programme, Marxist Philosophy, Political Economy, Party Constitution and Organisation to cover all Party members in four sessions.
1.180 Every year the state committees have to draw up a plan for Party education and district committees should also chalk out plans accordingly. The strong states should have permanent schools. Kerala has a permanent school at the EMS Academy which provides schooling for different levels of cadres throughout the year. West Bengal has recently set up a permanent school, Promode Dasgupta Educational Centre, at the state level and some districts have their own schools. Tripura, Tamilnadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh should draw up plans to set up permanent schools.
1.181 At the central level, the permanent school will be set up as soon as the Surjeet Bhavan is constructed. This will provide schooling on a regular basis for state level cadres and frontal cadres. The central school should also give special attention to providing schooling for the Hindi-speaking region.
1.182 The experience of holding study circles apart from regular Party classes in the united Andhra Pradesh and now continuing in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh should be cited. These study circles are held on a weekly basis at the district and divisional level. There are also study circles at the regional and state level too. The study circles meet every Sunday to discuss a particular topic. In Telangana, around 1200 comrades ranging from state, district, division and district fraction committee members and wholetimers are part of the study circles. In Khammam the Sunday for Study programme is being conducted for the last 500 weeks without a single interruption. Such study circles can be utilised to supplement the formal Party education which is given in many places at the most once a year.
1.183 The Party Centre should prepare an educational syllabus for all levels of Party members. The states can adopt and modify them suitably. There is a general need to upgrade teaching methods. Use of powerpoint presentations, audio-visual methods and reliance on group discussions and interactions have to be undertaken. When drawing up the syllabi it is necessary to have subjects concerning patriarchy and gender oppression and issues of caste and class and social oppression. Party education should equip cadres to conduct ideological campaigns and work among the people.
Cultural Front
1.184 A comprehensive document giving the Party’s perspective on culture has to be adopted within one year. The Party must promote cultural activities so that they can contribute to the development of a broad progressive democratic cultural movement. Cultural forums and platforms which will bring together writers, performing artists and cultural personalities should be nurtured. Primacy is to be accorded to counter the communal, reactionary and obscurantist forces, while at the same time creating an alternative to the neo-liberal and corporate-driven cultural values. At a different level, we must create cultural groups and squads that can take the Party’s politics and message to the people.
Fight against Communalism
1.185 The fight against Hindutva and other communal forces has to be conducted in the political, ideological, cultural and social spheres. There have been weaknesses in developing the activities to counter the communal forces. As pointed out in the review of the political-tactical line, though the tactical line gave direction to counter the communal forces, there were inadequate efforts at the ground level to take concrete steps to fight the communal forces, especially in the social and cultural spheres.
1.186 The 21st Congress Political Resolution has sought to give concrete direction to the multi-pronged struggle against the communal forces to be conducted by the Party and the mass organisations:
(i) Ideological and political material in popular style must be prepared for use in the campaign to expose the reactionary and divisive nature of Hindutva and other forms of communalism. The intellectual resources and research centres run by the Party should be deployed to mobilise intellectuals, historians and cultural personalities for the ideological fight against the communal forces.
(ii) In the educational field, initiatives at the pre-school and school level should be taken with the help of teachers and social organisations.
(iii) Special attention to organise social and cultural activities to propagate secular and scientific attitudes among the working class and in the working class residential areas by the Party and the trade unions.
(iv) Develop cultural and social activities with a view to combat the pernicious, casteist and obscurantist values purveyed by the communal forces. The popular science movement should be harnessed for this purpose.
(v) Develop the organisational work in the adivasi areas and among the dalits to counter the multifarious activities of the RSS outfits.
1.187 Utilising the intellectuals with us and our contacts with democratic intellectuals and prominent personalities, we should set up joint platforms against communalism. We should use the intellectual resources and the research centres that we have to produce political and ideological material for the campaign against communalism.
1.188 The RSS through its various frontal bodies is running tens of thousands of schools starting from the pre-school to the higher secondary level. We have to take initiative to set up schools which are run by trusts, registered societies or cooperatives. According to the reports, outside the strong states, Maharashtra is the only state where there are a significant number of schools in the various districts which have some association with the Party or allied organisations. It is important that in the strong states like West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, we should intervene to strengthen the public education system and we should also plan setting up different types of educational institutions to counter the RSS-run bodies.
1.189 In the cultural sphere, the Party should promote the setting up of broad-based cultural platforms for protection of progressive and secular values and cultural productions. The trade unions should also organize cultural and social activities in the working class localities. The community-based organisations and the locality-based mass organisations should also coordinate their efforts for cultural activities.
1.190 The Party and the mass organisations should promote social service activities like health centres, educational coaching centres, reading rooms, relief work and so on.
Social Issues
1.191 From the 18th Congress onwards direction has been given for the Party to take up social issues directly concerning gender oppression, caste oppression, dalit and adivasis rights and problems of minorities. This is necessary for the Party to advance among the most exploited sections and those socially oppressed.
1.192 Some bold initiatives in this regard were taken in Tamilnadu and united Andhra Pradesh which yielded good results. The Tamilnadu Untouchability Eradication Front and the Kulavivaksha Vyatireka Porata Sangam (KVPS) in Andhra Pradesh led the anti-caste discrimination and anti-untouchability movements. In Karnataka, in recent years, the Party has taken up struggle against derogatory caste practices in temples such as Made Snana. In Kerala the formation of the SC Welfare Organisation and the Adivasi organisation have helped take up the issues of these sections. Both Kerala and West Bengal have reported that taking up social issues have helped in expanding the Party influence and counter casteist and divisive forces. In Maharashtra some issues have been taken up at the state level and in a few districts while in others there is no awareness to take up the issue. In the North, Haryana has taken up issues of dalit oppression and honour killings in a consistent fashion. But in major states in North India there has been no worthwhile progress. Uttar Pradesh has singularly failed to undertake any such campaigns/movements despite repeated decisions. In Bihar and Madhya Pradesh some issues of social oppression have been taken up sporadically. Punjab also has an absence of such activities against caste discrimination even though there is a large Party membership among dalits. Odisha has reported reluctance by many lower committees to take up such issues.
1.193 The reasons for the failure to take up social issues is also explained by many state committees. Firstly, parliamentarism is the culprit, as it evokes the fear of upsetting the dominant caste groups and thus affecting electoral prospects. Secondly, the caste bias that exists among some Party cadres, especially in the Hindi states, leads to the refusal to take up the issue of dalit oppression, confining it to lip service. Thirdly, it is the low political ideological level and the erroneous understanding that general political struggle and taking up of class issues will lead to the overcoming of the social problem.
1.194 It must be self-critically accepted that the failure to take up social issues and the social reform agenda which was set out in the Salkia Plenum is one of the factors in the failure to achieve any worthwhile advance in the Hindi-speaking areas.
1.195 Both at the central and state leadership levels there has to be a concerted effort to reorient the Party’s approach on social issues. The fight against social and gender oppression must become part of the Party’s political platform and of the democratic movement.
Social Welfare Activities
1.196 Social welfare activities is an important way of establishing contacts with the people. Among the states where social welfare activities have been conducted, the experience of Kerala and Telangana/Andhra Pradesh and Tripura is notable. Kerala has organised palliative care activities all over the state, waste treatment programmes and organic vegetable cultivation. Telangana is running three hospitals and also medical camps in tribal areas and a generic medicine store. In Andhra Pradesh too there are tribal medical camps and in one centre selling of vegetables. In Tripura blood donation has become a mass movement. The state committees have reported that these have met with a good response from the people. There are a host of environmental issues affecting the people that need to be taken up. Social welfare activities must become part of the Party and mass organisations programmes and state committees should plan out such activities according to their capacity and resources, even on a modest scale.
Party Media
1.197 The Central Committee’s weeklies People’s Democracy and Loklehar are meant for the Party members and sympathisers so as to acquaint them with the Party’s understanding of political developments and its stand on economic, social and ideological issues. These papers are not meant for the general public. Even with this character, the papers are not being bought and read by those who should. People’s Democracy should reach all English knowing cadres, members and sympathisers while Loklehar should do the same in the Hindi-speaking areas. That it is not doing so is evident from the circulation figures. The circulation of People’s Democracy at present (April-June 2015 average) is 12,918 (all editions) and Loklehar is 8,692. Ten years ago in 2004-05 People’s Democracy circulation was 12,137 and Loklehar 10,116.
1.198 The decline in the circulation of Lok Lehar is a matter of greater concern. It reflects the stagnancy in the Party organisation in the Hindi region. The only positive aspect is the continuation of Lok Jatan as a fortnightly in Madhya Pradesh with a circulation of 2,700. All the Hindi states should take up the task of increasing the circulation of Lok Lehar seriously.
1.199 There are weeklies being run by four state committees where there are no dailies – Karnataka, Maharashtra, Assam and Odisha. There are also two fortnightlies run in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The circulation of these weeklies is more or less the same over the last two decades with some small decrease or increase. These weeklies and fortnightlies are also primarily addressing Party members and sympathisers. What has to be considered is whether we are running these journals in a stereotyped fashion. The state committees concerned must seriously discuss about the content, layout and get up of the journals. It seems to be assumed that since Party members are bound by discipline to read Party papers, the weeklies brought out at the central level and in the states need only to provide information as in a gazette. With the big changes in technology, it is possible to make the publications more reader friendly and attractive. Further, all the Party’s periodicals should go online.
1.200 The Party did a commendable job in developing six daily newspapers in six states. Most of them were developed after the Salkia Plenum. They are Deshabhimani (Kerala), Ganashakti (West Bengal), Daily Desharkatha (Tripura), Theekathir (Tamilnadu), Prajashakti (Andhra Pradesh) and Nava Telangana (Telangana). These daily newspapers are an important part of the political-organisational activities of the Party in these states. Among them Desharkatha in Tripura has substantially increased its circulation in the last one decade and has become the second largest daily in the state. Deshabhimani with its six editions is the largest circulated daily among all the Party papers. Ganashakti has been facing severe attacks and repression since 2011 and it is a constant struggle to maintain the circulation of the paper and its finances. The Prajashakti (united till recently) is coming out from seven editions in Andhra Pradesh and is able to sustain itself financially and have a circulation with a better ratio with its Party membership. Theekkathir has now four editions but its circulation at 25,525 is lagging behind. Given the Party membership and influence the Party commands, it should rise substantially. The newest daily is Nava Telangana after the formation of Telangana state and it has three editions.
1.201 The corporate media dominates the television and print media. It exercises powerful influence and has tremendous reach. Even though this media does not adequately cover and report the Party’s views and activities, it is important that we use the opportunities available in this mainstream media. For this, the state committees must constitute media teams of leading comrades who can appear in the electronic media and are trained to handle their queries and discussions.
1.202 Some meetings of the editors of the Party dailies and journals were held in the past years. This should become an annual practice as it will help coordination and exchange of ideas on how to improve the publications.
1.203 The Marxist which is the theoretical quarterly has been coming out regularly. Its material is also sourced by the theoretical journals brought out in the states. But its circulation has shown a decline and is now stagnant. Given the importance of the ideological struggle, it is necessary to upgrade the content of the journal and ensure its wider circulation.
Use of Social Media
1.204 The Party as a whole is still to fully appreciate the importance of our intervention in the social media. The reply of one State to the questionnaire sums up a fairly widespread prevailing approach that “it may lead to cutting off from the people.” In fact the whole point is how to ensure a wider reach of the party’s message through new technologies available. This is specially true as far as young people are concerned. Social media does not replace or substitute our mass work but adds to and multiplies our political and ideological message to the people.
1.205 The central Party has an English website and is in the process of developing the Hindi website which is already online.
1.206 Social media comprises Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and other similar Apps. There is a team functioning at the Centre to run the official Facebook page (www.facebook.com/cpimcc) as well as twitter account twitter/cpimspeak. Two national workshops were held by the Centre to orient the party towards the importance of social media interventions.
1.207 Now there are 18 States with State level functionaries/groups although the levels of functioning and intervention are extremely varied. Only West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Kerala are making efforts to set up social media groups at the district level.
1.208 This work itself needs improvement. Most importantly sharing and “likes” on central posts and tweets is far below the potential. We must use our vast network of members and sympathisers to promote our pages. One of the biggest weaknesses at present is our inability to build a strong network of facebook and whatsapp users.
1.209 At present there is little or no intervention on other sites or effective participation in ongoing debates. When the core is strong the ripple effect can take place. But in this case we need to strengthen Centre-state coordination as well as State-district coordination on the official pages and strengthen the core as a priority. This will help interventions.
To Sum Up:
1.210 Importance of conducting ideological campaign and work among the people. Raising the ideological level of the Party members is an important factor in motivating cadres and rejuvenating the Party. The socialist vision should be propagated to attract the younger generation. The sub committees and fraction committees should plan ideological work. Formulate cultural policy for the Party within one year after the Plenum. Promote cultural forums and platforms which will bring together various streams of artists and cultural personalities to counter the communal, reactionary and obscurantist forces and to present an alternative to the neo-liberal and corporate driven cultural values.
1.211 Permanent schools in all strong states. Yearly planning to be drawn up by state committees. Minimum schooling of four subjects for all Party members. Permanent central school in Delhi in two years time. Upgrade syllabi and teaching methods.
1.212 The fight against Hindutva and other communal forces has to be conducted in the ideological, cultural and social spheres. Set up joint platforms against communalism. Use our intellectual resources to produce political and ideological material for the campaign against communalism. Set up schools and pre-schools which can serve as a secular alternative to the RSS-run schools. In the cultural sphere Party and mass organisations should set up cultural platforms. Trade unions should organise cultural and social activities in the working class localities. The Party should promote social welfare activities like medical camps, health centres, coaching centres, sanitation drives, old age homes and so on.
1.213 Ensure that the Party takes up social issues in broad based campaigns and movements. This should be specially undertaken in the Hindi states and the states where this is not being taken up seriously.
1.214 Take steps to upgrade and improve the get up and content of the Party weeklies and journals (apart from the daily papers). All the Party periodicals should go online. State committees should have a media team to respond to the mainstream media.
1.215 Social media groups have been set up in 18 states. Only in three of the states district level social media groups exist. Efforts should be made to cover the districts in the other states. Steps to be taken to build a strong network of social media users.
Main Direction
1.216 The overall review of the state of the Party organisation given above enables us to identify the shortcomings and defects. It also helps us to understand where organizational gains have been made and to generalize that experience. The Party organisation must be streamlined and oriented towards steadily expanding the independent strength of the Party and through class and mass struggles forge the Left and democratic alliance which will help to bring about a change in the correlation of class forces.
1.217 Towards the goal of a strong Communist Party with a mass base throughout the country, the Plenum sets out the following direction and tasks:
- Forge class and mass struggles on economic and social issues to widen the Party’s influence and to rally the Left and democratic forces.
- Adopt a mass line and establish live links with the people.
- Streamline the organisation to build a revolutionary Party with quality membership.
- Make special efforts to attract youth to the Party.
- Wage the ideological struggle against communalism, neo-liberalism and reactionary ideologies.
Part Two
Review of the work of the Independent
And Democratic Functioning of Mass Fronts
2.01 The Party adopted two documents – `On Mass Organisations’ in 1981 and `On Approach to Mass Organisations’ in 2004 – explaining the nature of the independent and democratic functioning of the mass fronts and the interrelationship between Party and mass organizations. As noted in the Political-Organisational Report of the 14th Congress in 1992, in practice the understanding of the 1981 document was violated in most of the states and mass fronts. The document `On Approach to Mass Organisations’ gave certain specific directions for strengthening the independent and democratic functioning of the mass organizations and for maintaining the correct approach on the interrelationship between Party and mass organizations. The questions raised were mainly based on the specific directives given in the 2004 document.
2.02 Overall, the trend of the Party intervening directly in the running of the mass organisations continues. Such intervention in various forms hampers the independent functioning of the mass organisations and the aim of broadbasing them. The tendency still exists of making the mass organisations as adjuncts of the Party at various levels.
2.03 The answers state that in most states, efforts were made to ensure the independent and democratic functioning of mass fronts. There is some improvement in the overall situation. Efforts were made to avoid giving direct slogans of the Party mechanically from the platforms of the mass fronts, keeping in mind the consciousness of the ordinary members of the mass fronts. But this is happening in the case of some states and mass fronts. The answers from states say that Party leaders not connected with concerned mass fronts are seen rarely at state level. But this wrong practice is prevalent in districts and lower levels.
2.04 The workers, peasants, agricultural workers, women, youth and students are mobilized in rallies and programmes organized by the Party, mainly through the independent work of the Party members working in the mass fronts. But in some states and particularly at the lower levels, directions are given directly to the mass fronts by the Party.
2.05 In most of the states, the Party committees propose the names of only the President and General Secretary and in the case of trade union, the name of the Treasurer. But in many places, there is no consultation with the fraction committees before a decision is taken about the new office-bearers. In the case of some mass fronts, all the committee members are nominated by Party committees. The practice of asking district committees to propose names of committee members from that district is continuing in the case of some mass fronts.
2.06 There is also some improvement in the democratic decision making process by the concerned Party committee. Some state committees state that while finalizing the names of members in the committee, fraction committees or fractions consider the opinion of non-Party section and members of the mass fronts. But serious weaknesses are present in the case of many states and fronts.
2.07 In most of the states, the state mass front offices are not functioning from the state Party offices. But mass fronts like Kisan Sabha, Agricultural Workers Union, Student and Youth continue to function from Party offices in some states. At the district and lower levels, most of the mass fronts are functioning from the Party district level and lower level offices. In many places, trade union front has separate offices. The main office-bearers of the mass fronts in general carry out the task of respective mass fronts. But there are shortcomings in the case of Kisan and Youth Front office-bearers. In most of the states, the mass front review reports are not submitted and considered by the respective Party committees. Only at the time of the Party conferences, Party state committees consider the report of mass fronts. There are also weaknesses in allotting adequate number of cadres for the mass fronts in many states.
2.08 In general, accounts of the mass fronts are maintained separately from the Party. There are shortcomings and weaknesses in presenting the accounts before the mass fronts regularly and adopting them in the mass front committees.
2.09 Many state committees pointed out that there are weaknesses on the part of the Party cadres in fostering the democratic style of functioning in mass fronts. Though it is stated that the guiding role of the Party is implemented mainly through fraction committees, fractions, sub-committees and Party members at state and district level, in practice, in many places, the Party is tightly controlling and directing mass organizational activities. At lower levels, directives are given directly to the concerned mass front committees.
2.10 Despite the efforts to strengthen the independent and democratic functioning of the mass organizations, still the style of work creates the impression that the mass organizations of workers, kisans, youth, students, women etc are the wings or feeder organisations of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and not independent and democratic mass organizations. Party members and sympathizers constitute vast majority of the committee members in mass organizations. Among the mass organizations, Trade Union front and Student front may have more non-Party members and sympathizers than in other mass organizations. At the all-India level and at the state level, most of the office-bearers are Party leaders and members. The presence of non-Party members may be comparatively more in Trade Union and Student organisation. Serious efforts should be made to expand the mass organizations among the non-Party masses and rally them. The common people should feel through experience that the mass organizations are independent mass organizations and are functioning democratically.
2.11 The unit level functioning of the mass organizations is very important in this regard. Trade Unions are functioning on the basis of work place or factory. Student units are working on the basis of educational institutions. Other mass organizations are area-based organizations and the units and lower level committees of the Kisan and Youth organizations are not functioning independently and democratically in many places. At the block/tehsil or district level, when there is an important programme, general body meetings are held to do the work. Serious efforts should be made to activise the local level units and their independent and democratic functioning. The membership should be recruited and renewed through the primary unit. Unit level conferences should be held once a year after every membership renewal. District and state conferences can be held along with the all-India conferences.
2.12 By taking up the issues of different sections of the common people, mass organizations should make serious efforts to reach non-Party masses and rally them in mass organizations. The important task before mass organizations is to project the independent and democratic character of the mass organisation to reach the common people who may have even prejudices against the Party, by taking up their immediate realizable issues consistently.
2.13 Though responsibilities of the Party members are fixed for working in different mass fronts, a large section of the Party members are not discharging their responsibilities. There are serious weaknesses in this aspect. At different levels, efforts were made for building united activities with other mass fronts. Wherever such activities were organized, such united activities with other mass fronts helped to expand our influence. Such joint agitations and struggles helped to build strong movements. But in some states, where we are inactive, no progress has been made.
All India Centres of Mass Fronts
2.14 The reports from the mass front centres state that the meetings of the office-bearers, secretariat and committees of mass fronts are being held regularly. The average attendance of the members in the meetings of the TU, Kisan front, Agricultural Workers front and Women front is above 70 per cent of the total members. Student Centre reported that after the All India Conference, the attendance was around 70 per cent during the first year and in the next two years, the attendance varied between 40 and 50 per cent. Youth front also stated that the attendance in meetings was between 50 and 60 per cent of the total members.
2.15 There are seven office-bearers working at the TU Centre, four at the Kisan front Centre, three at the Agricultural Workers front Centre, five at the Women front Centre, four at Student front and four at Youth front Centre. Out of the three office-bearers of the Agricultural Workers front, two have state Party responsibilities. There is only one office-bearer working full time at the Women front Centre. There are four office-bearers who discharge Central responsibilities who come to the Centre for a week or ten days every two months. In both the Student and Youth Centres, of all the office-bearers assigned to work from the Centre, some are unable to do so because of other responsibilities. The functioning of the youth and student centres is weak and requires major improvement.
2.16 The present strength and the state of functioning of the all India centres of the mass organisations (with the exception of the TU centre) is inadequate for the task of the all India development and expansion of the mass organisations concerned. It is therefore necessary to ensure that a minimum number of office bearers function from the centre and devote their whole time to the mass organisation work. It is necessary to augment the cadres working at these centres. There should be an adequate set up for studying the developments in their concerned field and promptly coming up with slogans and demands for campaigns and movements.
2.17 The TU Centre is bringing out four journals and Women front Centre two journals regularly. The Kisan, Agricultural Workers, Student and Youth front Centres have journals, but they are published irregularly. The youth Centre has stopped its publication due to heavy financial losses.
2.18 It is also necessary to formulate certain norms and rules for the utilization of the funds available with the mass front Centres.
Sub-Committees & Fraction Committees
2.19 Meetings of the sub-committees and fractions of TU and Women are being held regularly. The agrarian sub-committee held very few meetings in the past three years and that matter was discussed after the Party Congress and a decision was taken to improve the regular functioning of the agrarian sub-committee. There is also need to improve the functioning of the fraction committees of Youth and Students.
2.20 The replies from the states show there is continuing weakness in the functioning of sub-committees and fraction committees at various levels. Fraction committees are entrusted with the task of seeing that Party policy and decisions are implemented through the fraction members in the mass front. But that is not all they are supposed to be doing. Sub-committees and fraction committees have to plan the political work of the Party members including sale of Party literature, ideological work and issues of Party building such as recruitment of auxiliaries, candidate members and so on. There is a tendency to concentrate only on issues which should be in the domain of the mass organisation committee. The Polit Bureau and the state committees must give concrete guidelines on the scope and agenda of the sub-committees and fraction committees.
2.21 Though it was decided earlier to review the working of the All India Centres periodically, that is not taking place regularly. Such reviews must be undertaken through the reports of the sub-committees and discussed in the Polit Bureau and placed before the Central Committee once a year in order to improve the functioning of the mass fronts. This was also not implemented. The content of the journals brought out by the All India Centres and other pamphlets and propaganda material should also be discussed keeping in mind the basic approach of these mass fronts. There should be regular meetings of the Party Centre with the Party functionaries at the all India mass organisation centres to discuss the work done.
2.22 In order to widen and intensify the mass campaigns, it is necessary to have coordination between the class and mass organisations associated with us. Through this coordination joint calls can be given of the class organisations together like trade unions, kisan and agricultural workers organisations or call for a joint movement of all the class and mass organisations together.
New Organisations
2.23 In the face of the Hindutva challenge and the enhanced activities of the RSS outfits, it is important to pay attention to the development of new mass organisations and platforms. Among them are the platform set up for adivasis and dalits whom also the RSS is specifically targeting. The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch was set up in 2010 and there are tribal organisations in 15 states affiliated to it. The Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch was set up a year ago and it is now working to set up state level platforms. For work amongst the Muslim minotiries, platforms can be set up in the states. These platforms will focus on the issues of these sections and integrate them with the broader democratic movement, in order to counter the RSS influence and narrow identity politics.
2.24 The Party has been emphasizing the need for setting up children’s organisations since the 19th Congress in all the states. This is yet to be done in most of the states. For the work in urban areas there have to be basti organisations and other locality/area/residential colony based organisations. Organisations for carrying on social welfare activities, and pensioners issues should also be initiated.
2.25 Rectifying our approach and our style of functioning in the mass organisation for ensuring their independent and democratic functioning is a continuous process. The document `On Approach to Mass Organisations’ adopted in 2004 states that if we have to achieve a breakthrough in weaker states, one of the main tasks is to work in the class and mass organisations in a manner whereby wider sections of the people can be brought within their fold and activities. The work of the trade unions, kisan sabhas, agricultural labour organizations in basic classes is still limited to a small section of these classes. The same situation applies to the youth, student and women fronts with a few exceptions. The Party should continue to implement the tasks identified in the 2004 document.
Part Three
Fresh Direction for
Class & Mass Struggles
3.01 The Central Committee had set up three study groups to study the changes which have come about due to the impact of neo-liberal policies on the socio-economic conditions and on the various classes. The groups submitted their reports on agrarian classes; on the working class and on urban areas and the middle classes. Based on these reports, the Central Committee discussed and decided on the direction needed for new tactics and slogans in some sectors. Some of these directions need to be concretized by the Party and the concerned mass fronts.
Agrarian Classes
3.02 The present state of agrarian relations is characterized by the expansion and intensification of capitalist development in rural India along with the existence of archaic institutions and social formations. Another feature is the exacerbation of the unevenness development of capitalism in the countryside in the era of globalization. The concentration of ownership of land, other agricultural assets and agricultural and non-agricultural income has intensified. The dominant class in the countryside is the rural rich nexus of landlords-big capitalist farmers-contractors and big traders.
3.03 The development of the class struggle and the agrarian movement thus has to base itself on the fight against the landlord-rural rich nexus. The base of power of the landlords and big capitalist farmers is their control over land, but that is not the only resource controlled by them. They are also involved in business activities such as money-lending, grain milling, dairying, trade and speculation in foodgrains and agricultural inputs, manufacturing, real estate, construction, cinema theatres, petrol pumps, transport, lease of agricultural machinery and educational institutions.
3.04 An important feature is the growing proletarianisation of the peasantry leading to vast new sections of the poor and middle peasantry participating as hired wage workers at farm and non-farm tasks. Hired wage workers, agricultural and non-agricultural, constitute the vast class of rural manual workers. To fight the rural rich nexus is our main task in the countryside. This requires the wide unity of agricultural workers, poor peasants, middle peasants, manual workers in the non-farm sector, artisans and other sections of the rural poor.
Land and Agrarian Issues in the New Context
3.05 The slogan of abolition of landlordism and distribution of all land belonging to the landlords amongst the agricultural workers, poor peasants and landless is the strategic goal. This can be accomplished only at the time of the completion of the People’s Democratic Revolution. So far the land struggle has been in the form of taking over ceiling surplus land, the occupation of waste land, government land and degraded forest land. However, at present, the land issue has assumed new forms.
3.06 With the neo-liberal policies, state governments of the bourgeois parties have reversed or diluted land reform laws. Land grab and State support for land acquisition for the corporates has assumed menacing proportions. Protecting the land of the peasants from the corporates and real estate sharks has become a major question in the land struggle. The fight against this acquisition of their lands, especially of the land of the tribal people, has come to the fore. The struggle for house sites for the rural poor is another aspect of the land issue.
3.07 Land, thus is a central issue to rally the poorer sections – agricultural workers, manual workers and poor peasants. But given the fact, as noted by the study group report, that land is not the sole, or, at times dominant source of income and economic activities of the landlord-capitalist farmer class, the contradiction between this dominant class which exploits agricultural workers, poor peasants and the rural poor manifests itself also through their agricultural and non-agricultural capitalist activities. Hence, all the issues of these exploited sections have to be taken up to build a powerful and united movement.
3.08 While movements for remunerative prices and debt relief which involve the whole peasantry have to be conducted, we should change the orientation of the movement, so that it is clearly centered around the interests of the agricultural workers, poor peasants, middle peasants and other toiling sections of the people. Our demands should demarcate from the demands of the landlords, capitalist farmers and their allies. The agricultural workers front and the kisan front should adequately reflect this understanding. When we ask for loan waiver, credit facilities, subsidies for agricultural inputs, the demand should be formulated in such a manner that the benefits should go mainly to the poor and middle peasants, agricultural workers and manual workers. We should not only demarcate from the demands of the landlords and capitalist farmers but also raise demands opposed to them.
3.09 The incidence of tenancies are increasing in many states. The tenancy contracts are marked by great diversity and complexity and most of them are extremely exploitative in nature. In general, poor peasant households and dalit landless obtain land on very high rents. Except in Andhra Pradesh, we have not made any noticeable intervention in other states. The kisan front and the agricultural workers front should intervene and take up the interests of the tenants. Considering the diverse nature of tenancy systems, the slogans to be raised would depend on the concrete situation and the strength of the movement in that area.
3.10 The landlords, big capitalist farmers and their allies conduct their exploitation in many ways by means of low wages, extraction of rent, interest, land and water charges, charges for tractors, harvesters and other agricultural equipment, agricultural storage, trade and so on. They exercise an important influence over the people and corner all government schemes in rural areas including those intended for the poor, often directing funds from such schemes to themselves. All these issues have to be taken up through organized struggles against the landlords and rural rich nexus.
3.11 An important area is the struggle against social oppression and discrimination in the countryside. The agrarian organisations should be in the forefront of the struggle to combat all forms of social deprivation such as lack of education, public health and housing facilities and the consignment of people of victimized social groups to specific places in the workforce and the division of labour. We have to concretely study the situation in each area and work out concrete tactics for taking up issues relating to social discrimination and oppression and integrate them with the class struggle in the countryside.
3.12 Migration from rural areas is steadily increasing over time. We should concretely study the problems that migrant workers face in various parts of the country, the condition of migrant families in their home villages in order to frame demands and issues related to their work and livelihood. Given the complexity of the migrant workers issue, the Party should directly intervene and provide direction to the class and mass organisations.
3.13 Cooperatives can play an important role to protect the interests of the small and middle peasants by helping them secure economies of scale. Self-help groups and cooperatives should be organized in the villages for production, processing, value addition, marketing and credits. A wide network in Kerala is providing help in the form of credit facilities and marketing to the peasantry. There are a large number of government schemes and legislations which provide opportunities for our intervention to ensure that these schemes benefit the peasantry and rural workers. Some of these schemes are the MNREGA, PDS, ICDS, mid-day meal scheme, Forest Rights Act, Rashtriya Grameen Vikas Yojana, National Rural Livelihood Mission and so on. If we intervene effectively, we will be able to mobilize large sections of the rural people and also ensure that the benefits reach the poorer sections and are not diverted to the rural rich.
3.14 Neo liberal policies pay little heed to irrigation and prevention of natural calamities and addressing environmental concerns. The poor and the middle peasants and the agricultural workers disproportionately suffer the consequences of floods, drought and other natural calamities. The peasants are denied any compensation. The effects of climate change and environmental degradation in agriculture impact on the poor and this must be an issue on which we educate the rural masses and proper slogans should be chalked out.
3.15 Finally, we have the task of organising the vast mass of agricultural workers and rural manual workers who are not engaged mainly in agricultural work.
3.16 As the study group has pointed out there are a large number of rural manual workers who are not engaged in agricultural work. It is also a fact that a substantial number of agricultural workers have to undertake other forms of manual labour in the rural areas for earning their livelihood and for their sustenance. Given the fact that a large number of agricultural workers are still not organized and there is agricultural workers organisation in only 15 states, it is necessary to build and expand the agricultural workers organisation.
3.17 As far as other rural manual workers are concerned, they are a growing section of the rural proletariat. They need to be organized separately too. There are various sectors such as construction, brick kiln and transport where they can be organized in trade unions. Migrant workers can also be brought into the fold of the rural workers union. There is the experience of organising artisans and people in traditional occupations in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh (united). Different sectors of the rural manual workers have to be organized. And there should be coordination amongst them through a rural workers federation. The situation varies from state to state and the setting up of a rural workers union, in what form and whether there will be a federation of such rural unions, should be decided at the state level. The agricultural workers union, the rural workers union and the peasant organisations should have coordination in order to take on the struggle against the landlord rural rich nexus.
Working Class
3.18 There have been changes in the composition of the working class under neo-liberalism. While there has been an expansion of the size of the working class, that increase is mainly of workers in the unorganized sector and growing number of contract and casual workers in the organized sector. Among the vast mass of the workers in the unorganized sector are different segments including daily wage workers, service sector workers, migrant workers, home-based workers and scheme workers who are not treated as “workers”. Some segments of the unorganized sector like private transport, including goods and passenger transport, occupy key positions in the country’s economy and employ millions of workers.
3.19 It is also significant that a big majority of these unorganized scheme workers are women.
3.20 Young workers comprise a large section of the workforce including in the modern high-tech industries. Young workers are victims of the worst forms of exploitation in the private organized sector as they are employed as contract workers, apprentices, trainees etc along with a small number of permanent workers. Vast majority of the youth are working in the unorganized sector where they are trapped in low paid jobs without social security benefits. Special attention has to be paid to organize the workers in strategic and key industries including the private organized sector and new manufacturing units.
3.21 The heterogeneity in the working class is not a transient but an integral feature of Indian capitalism. For the development of a strong working class movement, the importance of industrial workers in key industries and manufacturing units has to be underlined. Here too the importance of taking up the issues of contract and casual workers, demand of implementation of minimum wages or same wage for same type of jobs and statutory social security benefits etc. must be underlined. This requires change in the orientation of the unions in such industrial units.
3.22 In new private industries and SEZs, where even regular workers are not generally unionized, there should be a planned effort for unionisation and the major issues to be taken up will depend upon the prevailing situation. Democratic and trade union rights, ensuring statutory benefits and improvement in service conditions can be a general issue. The demand of contract/casual workers can be the same as that in the old manufacturing units. There is need for equipped/educationally qualified cadres for developing the trade unions in these units.
3.23 In industrial clusters there can be general unions for contract/casual workers as this would facilitate taking up common issues for larger mobilization. Such general unions can also be formed for regular workers for small units in industrial clusters.
3.24 Special attention has to be paid to organising women workers in the various sectors, both organized and unorganized. Taking up the specific problems of women workers including the issue of sexual harassment is essential to draw women into the organized movement. There is a bias in not promoting women in organisational responsibilities which should be done away with. Priority should be accorded to recruitment of militant women activists from the trade union front particularly from sectors like anganwadi workers into the Party.
3.25 Special attention has to be paid to taking up the issues of dalit and adivasi workers. They have specific problems of social oppression and discrimination apart from the economic issues and issues of class exploitation. In this connection our approach to the SC/ST organisations among workers and employees has to be different from that regarding other caste organisations or groups.
3.26 As far as young workers are concerned, the old methods of trade union functioning do not appeal to them. It is necessary for the trade union cadres to orient themselves to adopt suitable methods of work, use of language and equip themselves intellectually and politically to work amongst the workers. The failure to do so makes the workers prone to the influence by reactionary and retrograde ideologies of various hues.
3.27 The communal ideology has spread widely among the workers. Caste identity and influence also runs deep. The task of combating the communal and caste influence has to be taken up directly by the Party while trade unions have to take up issues related to communalism and counter the efforts to divide the working class. The Party has to directly conduct its political work among the working class. The political and ideological work against the bourgeois and communal ideology should be conducted by the Party in the working class areas and bastis. Such work should be coordinated with the trade unions and other mass organisations.
3.28 Finally, the 21st Congress of the Party had taken up an important question of how to organize workers in the residential areas. The Political-Organisational Report states:
a. “The report on the changes in the socio-economic conditions of the working class highlights the changed composition of the working class. Workers employed in different segments of the unorganized sector constitute 94 per cent of the total workforce; these include those in the agricultural sector. There are difficulties in organizing these workers through the traditional methods of unionizing them at the work place.
b. “A big section of the workers of all types – contractual workers in the organized sector, informal sector workers, home-based workers, service sector workers, self-employed – live in the slums and poorer neighbourhoods in the city or in the outlying suburbs. One way of organizing them is by linking work amongst them in the areas they live in. Since the work places of many workers are fragmented and they are mobile, they have to be approached in their residential areas. Moreover, for many a work place is their home (as in home-based workers or outsourced workers) or their place of work is in the neighbourhood.
c. “So, trade unions should be involved in organizing area-based organizations. This can be in the form of neighbourhood/bastis/mohalla committees. Such committees and networks should also include youth, women and other locality-based organizations. These community-based committees can conduct multifarious activities, some of which will have a trade union character. But other activities can include social welfare activities, reading rooms, cultural clubs, health centres, consumer forums and cooperative societies.
d. “Orienting the Party, the trade unions and other mass organizations towards such community-based organizations should help us to reach out to not only the unorganized sector workers but also the urban poor in general.”
Middle Class and Urban Area Work
3.29 Urbanisation is steadily advancing under capitalist development. 31.2 per cent of the people live in urban areas. Five states have over 40 per cent urban population. There are major changes in the urban landscape. Industries have moved out from the city centres and the working class has been uprooted and settled in the outskirts of the city. Given the growing importance of the urban areas the Party and mass organisations should change their orientation and develop a plan of action by adopting forms of organisation suitable for urban territorial work. This is essential if we have to reverse the marginalisation of the Party and the Left in the big urban centres.
3.30 The neo-liberal urban reforms that are being implemented have worsened the working conditions of the poor and the lower middle classes; infrastructure in poorer neighbourhoods has deteriorated and the cost of living increased through privatization of basic services or imposing of user charges. Another fall out of the reforms is the decline in the flow of grants and loans from the governments to the local bodies. Thus there is no real devolution of powers to local bodies inspite of the rhetoric of decentralization of power.
3.31 Slums and bastis are where most of the urban poor live. Basti and local organisations have to be formed to work among the urban poor. Where there are existing local organisations we should explore whether we can work within them. The people in the bastis respond to the issues of housing, threat of demolitions, drinking water, sanitation, public distribution system, provision of schools and health services, police harassment and oppression by criminal and mafia gangs.
3.32 We have to pay special attention to work in the dalit and Muslim localities, bastis and colonies. In many states they live in segregated areas and they face acute problems of the urban poor.
3.33 As stated earlier, the formation of community based organisations in the form of neighbourhood/basti/mohalla committees will also help in organising the workers of the unorganized sector. In the bastis and localities these organisations can bring all the locality-based mass organisations like youth, women and others to work in a coordinated way.
3.34 The neo-liberal phase of capitalist development has brought about a major transformation in the middle class. An upper middle class strata has developed which is highly educated, employed in high income jobs and highly consumerist. They provide the market for the high-end electronic goods, clothing, cars etc. They are the main customers for the elite educational and health facilities. The upper middle class, with some exceptions, is in favour of neo-liberal values and its behaviour is driven by aspiration to do better.
3.35 The rest of the middle classes also aspire to the life of the upper strata. But the realities of life create obstacles in their fulfilling these aspirations. They have to struggle to acquire a flat, house, pay for their children’s education, meet medical expenses, ensure security in old age etc. Their attitude and behaviour is driven by their aspirations and anxieties.
3.36 The middle classes are confronted by various problems similar to those that the working class faces. Liberalisation policies have affected them in many ways. This pushes them into struggles and movements along with the working class on a number of occasions. It also has democratic aspirations where it wants justice and fair play done to all citizens. It wants politics to be cleansed of money power, corruption and criminalization. But alongside, there are also aspirations for social mobility and prevalence of illusions about the market economy. These are the contradictory trends which are exhibited within the middle class and these are reflected in their vacillating role at times.
3.37 The appeal of the Left and the links with the middle class have weakened due to the changes in the middle classes under the neo-liberal regime. We have to concentrate our attention on the lower and middle strata of the middle classes. We have to adopt new methods of taking our political message and forms of organisation to reach out to them. The issues and problems faced by these strata of the middle classes need to be concretely taken up and addressed.
3.38 We have to take up the issue of corruption, good governance, pollution, environment etc which are of concern to the middle classes and set up non-Party platforms to take up these issues to attract sections of the middle classes especially the youth. We have to work through our activities in the professional bodies like the bar, medical, academic research, etc. In the IT sector where it is difficult to set up trade unions we must target young professionals through the free software movement and taking up issues of concern through appropriate platforms.
3.39 Girl students in higher education and young women in employment are an important part of the urban population. They face discrimination, unequal treatment and sexual harassment. Wherever our associations and unions are working we have to form sub-committees to take up the issues faced by them. Where necessary, special forums may be set up to work among them.
3.40 The main area of work among the middle class is in the ideological sphere. For this, citizens forums, cultural platforms etc should be organized where discussions and cultural programmes should be organised which relate to the lives and interests of middle classes.
3.41 In middle class localities more and more families reside in multistoried buildings and apartments. There are residents associations and we have to get actively involved in the work of these associations through our members and sympathisers.
3.42 There is a growing number of senior citizens, retired people and pensioners in the urban areas. They face financial, health and old age problems. We should work in pensioners associations, provision of health care, old age homes and recreational centres for them.
Part Four
Direction for Organisation in States
Kerala
The CPI(M) is the strongest single party in Kerala though it is not the majority party. The Party and the mass fronts are active and intervening in all political developments and economic and social issues in the state by organizing agitations and struggles. The Party is strong among the basic classes – workers, agricultural workers and poor peasants. Among the social groups, Party has good influence among the dalit sections. The influence among the adivasi section is growing. Party’s influence is relatively weak among the middle and rich peasants who constitute the base of the rightist forces in Kerala. The Party has substantial influence among the middle class and middle class employees. The crisis in the traditional industries and the loss of employment of workers have raised new problems for Party’s capacity for mobilization and expansion. Though the Party has been making consistent efforts to expand its influence among the minorities – Muslims (26 per cent of the population) and Christians (22 per cent of the population), our influence among them is comparatively weak due to the strong hold of the Christian church and the influence of the political parties like IUML and Kerala Congress. The communal and caste forces are very active in Kerala and trying to expand their base by making use of a section of neo-rich that has emerged in the Kerala society due to the capitalist growth. BJP is actively working to expand its influence in the state. They are trying to make use of some leaders of the caste organisations for that purpose. The Party should vigorously continue its efforts to expand its influence. The efforts of the BJP-RSS and the caste and communal forces should be effectively countered. Among the Muslim minorities, some extremist organizations are active.
The Party has been trying to resist the efforts of the BJP and RSS to expand their base.
The rightwing media is very strong in Kerala and continuously trying to malign the Party and the Left. The Party has rich resources such as Deshabhimani daily with a circulation of 3.25 lakh, Chintha and Deshabhimani weeklies and a major publishing house. Chintha Publications has published books worth Rs. 9,03,27,504 in 2014. The Party has influence in a TV company which has four channels now. A large section of intellectuals, writers and artists are with the Party. All these resources can be effectively coordinated and used to counter the political-ideological attack of the rightist forces against the Party and the Left. The attempts to revive superstition, obscurantism etc should be resisted. The Party and mass fronts should work for developing scientific temper among the people.
There are 13 research institutions controlled by the Party. If these institutions are used properly, it will help to mobilize the intellectuals in the political-ideological work of the Party. The research institutions can play an important role in studying the socio-economic changes happening in Kerala due to various factors. There is concerted effort on the part of the enemies to de-politicise the society particularly the younger generation. The changes in the content and structure of higher education has created a favourable situation for these forces. The Party should make more powerful interventions in the intellectual and cultural field to counter the efforts of these forces.
On all economic, political, social and cultural issues, the Party should come forward with its alternative approach. The state Party is conscious about this and is taking steps in that direction. This is very important for the expansion of the Party in Kerala.
The Party in Kerala has achieved big success in fighting factionalism in the Party. The Party should continue its struggle against all vestiges of factional tendencies. It is also a fact that the longstanding factional tendencies in the Party have made some adverse impact in the quality of the Party membership, process of cadre promotion, strict observance of Party discipline and democratic centralism. Factionalism also contributed to the growth of federal and liberal tendencies. The Party state committee should patiently take steps to eradicate wrong tendencies and to strengthen collective work and unity in the Party.
There is increase in the Party and mass front membership. But the increase in the membership of the Party and mass fronts is not adequately reflected in the growth of the influence of the Party. The special measures taken to activise the Party branches and to raise the political-ideological level of Party members should be continued and further strengthened.
The loose membership recruitment in many districts is reflected in the high percentage of dropouts of candidate members. There is weakness in the functioning of the auxiliary groups. The auxiliary groups should be activised and the members should be given specific responsibilities and their performance should be monitored. The auxiliary group members should be given political-ideological education and training. The organizational Plenum held before the last state conference had correctly identified the mistakes, shortcomings and weaknesses in the Party, including the lavish life style of some cadres, at different levels. Efforts should continue to rectify the mistakes, shortcomings and weaknesses. The effort to recruit more women in the Party has yielded some results. But their representation in the committees is low. Appropriate steps also have to be taken to promote women cadres.
The trend of Party intervening in the day-to-day work of the class and mass organisation dominates. This should be rectified to ensure the independent and democratic functioning of the mass organisations.
West Bengal
The organisational situation in West Bengal has to be seen in the context of the election defeat of the Left Front in 2011 followed by unprecedented terror unleashed by the ruling TMC with the connivance of the police in the last four and half years. The Party has lost 163 leaders, cadres and supporters out of 170 martyrs of the Left Front. More than one lakh cadres are facing severe political repression. Implicating them with false allegations has become an order of the TMC rule. It was in this situation the 24th state conference of the Party decided to orient the organisation to launch class and mass struggles, take steps to expand living contact with the masses through mass organisations, develop their independent role to conduct campaigns and mass movements and streamline the Party organisation by activising the Party membership and Party units; to take steps to drop chronically inactive members and enhancing the quality of Party members. These are of particular interest to the people who have turned away from us. Alongside the party has decided to continue the task of fighting against the negative trends in the organisation which had crept in during the long period of being in government.
Since the state conference, serious efforts have been made to develop continuous struggles and movements of different sections of the people. The class and mass organisations have also moved for increased activities, campaigns and struggles. In the past year there have been various strike struggles including the two-day tea garden workers strike, transport strike and the 2nd September general strike. The kisan organisation conducted a five-day jatha covering all the blocks in the districts. There were mass demonstrations to the secretariat (Nabanna) and police headquarters which were brutally lathi-charged. As a result of the various struggles, the Party cadres have become more active and courageous to brave the repression. All this is essential to build up resistance to the attacks on democracy and to fight the misdeeds of the TMC government and the growing threat of the communal forces represented by the BJP-RSS combine. Special attention has been paid for taking up issues concerning the scheduled castes, adivasis and minorities. Platforms for this purpose should be set-up as was done for the adivasis.
Even though the weaknesses in the Party organisation have been identified and certain remedial steps taken, it is still inadequate given the situation where the Party is facing continuous attacks from the TMC dispensation. It was categorically stated in the state conference and thereafter that efforts must be made to improve the quality of Party members, to activise inactive members and to tighten the process of recruiting of Party members. The state committee has emphasized that all efforts must be made to activise the Party members along with the improvement of branch functioning, formation of auxiliary groups from amongst the militant cadres of the mass organisations. Further, it is necessary to weed out elements that are unable to conform to the minimum communist standards.
The class composition of the Party membership shows a lag in the working class representation. This exists since long and has slightly improved now. More concrete steps are to be taken to improve the working class membership. Along with that emphasis has to be there for recruitment from agricultural workers, scheduled castes and tribes and minorities. The youth composition of the membership (below 31 years) is 13.5 per cent only, which is very unsatisfactory. Steps must be taken to recruit more young people in the Party. Some steps have been taken which have yielded results in lowering the average age of the committee members from the state committee down to the local committees.
The efforts made so far to increase the women Party membership have not made much progress. The decision has been that there should be at least one women member in a branch and where there is no women membership there must be women members in the auxiliary group. This is not yet fully implemented. Corrective steps should be taken in this regard. It has been decided that the local and zonal committees must include more than one woman member and the number of woman members in the district committees should be increased at least by one. Each district secretariat must have a woman member. It has had some tangible success. More remains to be done.
The state conference has stressed upon strengthening of the political-ideological work and a permanent Party School has started functioning. Permanent Party Schools are functioning in some districts and are to be extended to all the districts. Party education to cover all Party members has been initiated. Special attention has to be paid with intensive ideological campaign among the people countering the present Hindutva ideology. The Party cadres should be equipped to take this campaign in al the fields of the society.
The state committee should make concerted efforts to change the stereotyped style of functioning of committees in order to ensure that the organisation is so revamped as to make it capable of meeting the present adverse situation. There should be emphasis on regular mass collection of funds from the people as an important political-organizational task.
In the prolonged period of Left Front rule there was erosion in the independent functioning of the mass organisations and mobilizing the people for struggles on various burning issues. Steps have been taken to ensure the independent functioning and reorient the mass organisations. Some of the alien trends which developed in the Party organisation and in a section of the comrades need to be rectified. For this rectification campaign is to be specifically continued and intensified.
As per the decision of the state conference, a separate organizing committee of the agricultural workers has been formed in the state kisan front convention, convened for this purpose, to be followed by separate conferences to be held within the next few months.
The Party is presently occupied with the formation of permanent booth Party teams and the building of booth struggle committees of the Left mass organisations to unleash statewide movements on a 15-point charter of demands along with the struggle on local realizable demands and integrating them with the struggle on three fronts – in defence of democracy, secularism and livelihood of the people. A Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations (BPMO) has been constituted at a state level convention of Left-led 113 mass organisations. Statewide jathas were held in the month of November by the BPMO covering all the 77,000 booths of the state.
Tripura
Tripura is a state where the Party has been registering steady growth. The state unit has been able to expand its political influence and develop the organisation amongst different sections of the people. But there are still some sections of society where the Party should have its political influence and organisation. The Party has to reach out to them also. Sections of the urban middle classes fall in this category.
The political influence of the Party was for a long time mainly confined to the tribal people while the Congress party had a strong base among the non-tribal people. However, due to the sustained political and organisational work and through various class and mass struggles, the Party was able to overcome this major weakness and the Party is now in a commanding position both among the tribal and non-tribal people. The Party has been able to strengthen the unity between the tribal people and non-tribal people, which is the basis for the emergence and existence of the Left Front government. That is why this unity is sought to be disrupted by various divisive forces including the use of extremist outfits which are nurtured by foreign agencies. The Party has to be alert to counter this. These forces at present are trying to target the tribal students, youth and employees with sectarian and illusory slogans of a separate state for the tribal people. The Party has to be active in countering these disruptive moves and to wage a vigorous ideological and political campaign to rally the tribal youth, students and educated sections.
The Tripura state unit has to consolidate the achievements and influence gained and take steps to overcome the weaknesses that exist. The strength of the Party membership can be considerably increased without compromising on quality. The state committee has decided that every year each branch should recruit at least three new members in the auxiliary groups and among the three, one each should be from women, student-youth and working class mainly from the unorganized sector. Special attention has to be given for recruitment of the youth of different sections as the youth composition in the overall membership is unsatisfactory.
It is necessary to strengthen and revamp the Party organisation in the tribal compact areas and among the tribal people in general to counter the sectarian and divisive moves of the anti-Left tribal organisations working at the behest of extremist organisations with the slogan of a separate tribal state.
To improve the political-ideological and organizational quality of the party members in general, party shall have to give proper emphasis on the work of regular party schooling in a planned, systematic and methodical manner. A permanent state Party school should be set up without further delay. Subsequently, in a phased manner permanent schools at the district level can be set up.
There should be a review of the problems of wholetimers. The number of wholetimers needs to be augmented and among the new recruits it should be ensured that they are selected from the working class, SC/ST, women and youth. The wages of wholetimers need to be increased so that they are able to meet their minimum needs.
The daily Desherkatha has steadily increased its circulation. The aim should be to achieve a circulation of 50,000. Similarly, the circulation of People’s Democracy should also be increased substantially.
To develop and maintain living contact with the people at the grassroots level citizens committees should be set up by dividing the polling booth area into three or four parts and try to mobilize people on local issues other then social activities.
In the context of the existence of the Left Front government for a prolonged period, it is necessary to ensure the independent functioning of the class and mass organisations and their taking up the issues of the people instead of depending on Government. There should be vigilance about any alien trends developing including corrupt practices among the elected representatives or cadres.
Tamilnadu
Tamilnadu is a state where the Dravidian parties have been entrenched and have dominated politics since late 1960s. The bipolar situation of DMK and AIADMK dominating the political field with their alliances is something which has worked adversely for the development of the CPI(M) and independent Left base and political influence.
The decision of the state conference and the political-tactical line of the 21st Congress has accorded top priority to strengthen the independent base of the Party and go towards rallying the Left and democratic forces. This requires reorienting and gearing up the Party organisation and the work of the mass organizations.
Tamilnadu has the highest number of Party membership (1,06,247) after Kerala and West Bengal. There are over 39 lakh members in various class and mass organizations. There has been a steady increase in the membership of both the Party and mass organizations, but this has not reflected in the expansion of the Party’s influence and mass base. There has been a reduction in the influence of the Party in traditional areas like Kanyakumari and in some parts of the delta region.
Much more attention has to be paid to taking up of local issues and conducting sustained struggles.
The Party has been effective in taking up social issues. The formation of the TNUEF, a broad based platform against untouchability, and the activities conducted by this platform have enhanced the image of the Party among the dalits and progressive sections. Based on this experience, it is necessary to broaden the movement on social issues by taking up a gamut of issues, including that of gender oppression.
The key organizational step to be taken is to end the loose recruitment into the Party and streamline the Party organisation, so that the quality of Party membership is improved. High drop out rate, a large number of Party members being inactive, many Party members having not read the Party Programme and Constitution and defective branch functioning are indicators of the looseness of Party membership. There seems to be not much distinction between a Party member and an active member of the mass organisation. The whole process of recruitment of Party members through auxiliary groups in which minimum education and training is given has to be introduced. The main criteria should be the participation in mass struggles and movements.
It is necessary to select some priority districts/areas where Party and mass organizations should concentrate attention and resources that can lead to deepening and widening the mass base. This is necessary as our mass base is thinly spread across the state.
Most of the Party members do not pay levy at the CC rate. Party committees seem to accept lower levy rates. This has to be corrected and payment of levy at CC rate should be strictly enforced.
The state should have a permanent Party school. Along with that, Party education to cover the entire membership should be organized. The fact that only 20 per cent of members attend Party classes shows low motivation.
All these points to the need to improve the quality of membership which has to start at recruitment process itself. If Party members are activised and the quality improved, then only the independent work and influence of the Party can increase. The state has paid more attention to the recruitment of women in the Party but their percentage in the Party is below 20 per cent, i.e., 17.3 per cent. There are relatively more women in the district committees and there are 74 women wholetimers in the Party.
There is a publishing house which has brought out new books and reprints totaling 752 on various topics and nearly 12 lakh copies of pamphlets on various issues were published on behalf of the Party state committee for use in state level campaigns. The Party daily Theekkathir has four editions. Its circulation is 25,525. This is low compared to the membership of the Party and its influence. Concrete steps should be taken to increase the circulation.
This is a state where the class and mass organizations have registered growth. More attention should be paid to the following: a) ensuring all party members work in a mass organisation, b) doing Communist work in the class and mass organizations to raise political consciousness and for Party building.
Telangana
After the bifurcation of the united Andhra Pradesh in 2014, Telangana state was formed with 10 districts and 459 mandals with Hyderabad as capital. Telangana state got 3.5 crores of population in 1,14,845 Sq.kms of territory. Social and political composition also changed to an extent. Now minorities (12 per cent), dalits (16 per cent) and tribals (10 per cent) together form 38 per cent of the population and if backward classes (54 per cent) are also added, total social groups population percentage comes to 92. In the new state 38 per cent of the population is urban, which is mainly concentrated in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. Mandals with considerable population of tribals are located mainly in Adilabad, Khammam and Nalgonda and Warangal districts. Most of the Muslim minority population is located in 38 urban centres. In these areas this section decides the outcome of Assembly elections.
TRS which spearheaded the agitation for separate Telangana state, won the first assembly election held in 2014 May, and formed the government. Although TRS and Congress are the main rivals in the political arena, TDP, MIM, BJP and Left parties have some pockets of considerable political influence and mass base. Although TDP is trying to keep its organization intact in Telangana, it faces serious hurdles to sustain as a big force in the state. Although, communalism has some traditional roots in Telangana, the prospects for the growth of BJP is not bright at present. But we cannot say that the situation will not change in future. The strong unity of the Left in the recent past is reflected in various united activities. As the political scenario is not dominated by the bipolar politics, as disillusionment of people with the TRS government is growing, the scope for growth of activities and organization of Left and democratic forces looks bright.
Total mass organizations membership is 28,15,186. Party has got 2,99,258 votes in 37 Assembly Segments in 2014 elections. Party has 47,502 Party members with 4,580 branches spread over 186 mandals out of total 449 mandals. Most of the Party members are concentrated in 3 districts which is more than 74 per cent. A total of 856 wholetimers are functioning in the state. The social composition of the members at various levels of the Party organisation is relatively representative in terms of SC and ST membership in committees. This is not the case with women. While 16.55 percentage of Party members is women, they are represented at DC and PC level only by 9.25 per cent, in whole timers by 7.7 per cent.
Permanent school is functioning at Hyderabad. The circulation of the daily newspaper, Navatelangana, is not commensurate with the Party’s strength. The monthly political magazine Telugu Marxist has circulation of 2813. But People’s Democracy has a circulation of only 164.
We should activise our mass organizations in taking up people’s issues and build broad platforms to mobilize various Left and social forces on common issues. Through this united activity we should try to gather forces to forge a united Left and democratic platform in future.
The state committee should ensure the independent functioning of the mass organizations as per their norms.
The state committee has been taking up various social issues and campaigning on the demands of the dalits and the OBCs. This process has enabled it to forge united platforms with other organizations belonging to these sections. While pursuing this course, it is important that the class outlook is maintained. The ideological work gets added importance because of the presence of a strong communal atmosphere and the necessity to protect class moorings of the Party when working with identity based social forces.
As per the plan of action drawn up by the state committee in June 2014, it has been decided to strengthen the existing mass base in Nalgonda and Khammam districts by improving grassroot work at village and basti level; to concentrate work in tribal contiguous areas; to make special efforts to improve work in Hyderabad and surrounding area and for this, step up work in Trade Union front and work among the urban poor.
It is necessary to strengthen work on the student front so that more cadre can be drawn from this front.
Andhra Pradesh
After the separation of Telangana, the residual Andhra Pradesh with 13 districts and a population of 4.5 crore people became a new state. It contains three distinct regions – central developed part, south western backward drought-prone Rayalaseema and the northern undeveloped Uttara Andhra with abundant natural resources. A contiguous belt of 146 mandals spanned over five districts where most of the tribal population is concentrated abuts the border regions of Odisha and Chattisgarh.
The state has a 5.53 per cent of tribal population most of whom live in compact areas, has a 17.08 per cent of scheduled caste population who are mainly concentrated in southern coastal parts of the state, has a 7.3 per cent of Muslim population most of whom are concentrated in urban centers of Rayalaseema. Urban population is small when compared with Telangana but it is dispersed throughout the state.
Most of the big and key industries are concentrated in Visakhapatnam city. Because of the development of capitalist relations in agriculture considerable non-farm employment was generated which has turned many of the mandal headquarters which is the lowest administrative unit into a centre of worker-peasant confluence. In delta regions tenancy has become an important mode of exploitation of the small farmers.
Telugu Desam Party in alliance with BJP won the last assembly elections and formed the first government of the new state. It is pursuing a vision of transforming the state into an industrial, commercial, entertainment and service providing powerhouse with help of international capital. A big section of the middle class was taken in by this agenda of the ruling party. YSRCP, which is the main opposition party, is unable to gain the confidence of the people with its activities. Even then the politics of the State remain bipolar as there is no worthwhile third force. In such a situation, the Party should strengthen Left unity and work to rally all the Left and democratic forces in the state.
Our Party’s mass base is weak in the new state. With the recent merger of some tribal mandals from Telangana, the mass base in that assembly segment got strengthened. The mass organisation membership is 24,40,465. The Party got 1,06,664 votes in 31 Assembly segments in 2014 elections.
Party has 33,753 members with 3,826 branches spread over 575 mandals out of total 670 mandals. A total of 994 wholetimers are functioning in the state. The social composition of the members at various levels of the Party organisation is unrepresentative. While 19.6 per cent of Party members is women, women are represented at DC and PC level only by 8.1 per cent, in wholetimers by 7.9 per cent. There is need to promote cadres from the SC/ST and women in the committees.
Establishing a permanent school is at a primary stage. Circulation of Prajasakti daily newspaper is not commensurate with Party membership. The monthly political magazine Telugu Marxist has a circulation of 7,221. But People’s Democracy has a circulation of only 221.
The main task of the Party and mass organizations should be to gear-up the organisation for mass activities and struggles, so that the basis for developing the mass influence is laid. We should concentrate on the trade union and student fronts to spread the movement throughout the state and to attract the new generation towards Left politics. Given our weak base among the kisans, it is necessary to pay special attention to organizing the rural poor, the tenants-farmers, poor and middle peasants and the agricultural workers. The state committee should ensure the independent functioning of the mass organizations as per their norms.
To expand the work of the Party in the tribal areas, we should consolidate the mass base in Rampachodavaram assembly segment and expand in some other tribal pockets where we have considerable presence. The state Centre should devote special attention to the tribal belt by providing the necessary resources and guidance.
It is also necessary to pay special attention to the issue of development of the backward regions especially Rayalaseema.
Maharashtra
Maharashtra has a rich tradition of the freedom struggle and social reform movements. The demand for a linguistic state saw a major movement for Samyukta Maharashtra led by the Left and secular forces. The strong trade union movement provided a progressive influence on society. But the situation changed with the emergence of the Shiv Sena in the 1960s, with the Congress and big business using it to undermine the trade union and the Left movement in the state. The state is now polarized into two camps led by the Congress-NCP and the Shiv Sena-BJP at the two ends. Despite our attempts, the broad Left progressive camp comprising of some Dalit groups and others along with the Left parties could not emerge as a viable political alternative.
The strength of our Maharashtra movement lies in our sustained presence among the tribals in the Thane-Palghar-Nashik contiguous rural region. The Party now has one Assembly seat in this belt and has made a comparatively good showing in successive Lok Sabha elections here. There are now 41 elected members of the Party in local bodies like Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samitis and Municipalities in 7 districts. Some new centres of activity have also emerged in parts of western and northern Maharashtra and Marathwada. Notable among them is the trade union centre of Nashik and the Kisan centres in Ahmednagar and Parbhani districts. But in none of these centres is the Party’s base strong enough to win Assembly seats, except in Solapur city and in the tribal belt referred to above.
The lack of expansion of the Party around our isolated pockets has also often brought our small consolidated areas of strength under attack. Our weakest link is the Vidarbha region which has a large proportion of poor peasants, agricultural workers, dalits and adivasis. Along with parts of Marathwada, Vidarbha has been under the spell of an intense agrarian crisis, earning for itself the sad nomenclature of the farmer suicide capital of the country.
Through patient efforts, during recent years, there has been growth in the activities and in the mobilization capacity of the Party and of class and mass organizations. The current total membership of the class and mass fronts in the state is 7.25 lakh. But here also, as in many other parts of the country, this has not always led to an elevation in the level of political consciousness which, in turn, can manifest itself in visible enhancement of our electoral strength.
Despite all this work, Party membership remains stagnant at around 12,000. There is a great need to streamline the Party organisation, from the branches to the district committees. There have been certain factional tendencies within Maharashtra which have adversely affected our potential for growth. Other deviations like parliamentarism that have been pointed out in the rectification resolution, also need to be combated.
There is need to strengthen the state Centre with a team regularly functioning from there. There should also be a fresh look at priority districts/areas and fronts to be developed given the changed political situation, particularly the kisan and the student fronts.
The new situation of a BJP-led government in the state and the Centre opens up new opportunities. The requirement of an integrated struggle encompassing the anti-people, neo-liberal economic policies, the communal attacks and onslaughts on Dalits and other socially backward sections creates conditions for Left and democratic intervention and evolution of an alternative policy platform. Since the Assembly elections last year, there is sustained united activity of Left and other democratic forces. The BJP is not traditionally strong and is in continuous conflict with the Shiv Sena. There is absence of significant efforts by the Congress and NCP to revive themselves. In such a situation, the possibility of advancing the Left by concentrating on the agrarian front and taking up sustained local struggles has good prospects. At the same time, trade unions can also be a major site of struggle.
Other mass organizations like student, youth and women also have some continuous activity though in pockets. These have to lead to formation of units of these organizations at the grassroot level and militants from them have to be recruited in the Party in a planned manner. There are three platforms for adivasis, caste abolition and minority rights in the state. These should be activised in the districts, so that social issues are taken up in a sustained manner.
The need for ideological intervention is also felt perhaps as never before. The Party weekly, Jeevanmarg and some other publications have made some contribution but it is largely inadequate when compared to the magnitude of the requirement.
Bihar
Bihar had been one of the traditional Centres of the Left movement in India. Due to the influence of communal and caste politics, the Left is getting marginalized. When the Party was divided in 1964, a large chunk of the Party members went with the CPI. The Party also suffered division by desertion of certain leaders. Our position is third among the Left parties in Bihar.
According to the strength of Party membership, Bihar’s position is seventh after Kerala, West Bengal, Tamilnadu, Tripura, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The Party is stagnant in Bihar but declining in the old strong Centres such as Begusarai, Champaran, Bhagalpur and Purnea districts. The strength of the Party membership is not appropriately reflected in mass influence in Darbanga.
Among the mass fronts, kisan sabha is relatively active and taking up issues. There is scope for expansion of the kisan and agricultural workers fronts. There is need to strengthen the state Centre of agricultural workers front in order to activise the district committees. There is scope for expansion of the TU movement, if the collective work of the TU Centre is further strengthened. The student and youth fronts are not active. There has been a prolonged neglect of nurturing student and youth cadres and looking after their needs. This needs to be corrected. Though the All India Conference of women’s front was held in Bihar, the opportunity was not utilized for expansion of the movement.
The collective work of the state Party Centre should be strengthened. The state secretariat should take firm principled organizational positions in tackling organizational problems in districts. There is weakness in making interventions in the political developments in the state.
The Party should be visible in the state. There are possibilities for expansion of the Party and mass fronts. The state Centre should strengthen their interventions in the political developments and tackling organizational problems in districts. The state Party should give more importance in building student and youth fronts. Adequate cadres have to be identified and deployed. The independent and democratic functioning of the mass front should be ensured. There is also weakness in taking up social issues in the state. The women composition in the Party membership is only 3.8 per cent – the second lowest in the country. The Party state committee should take immediate steps to recruit more women into the Party. There is ample scope for growth of the Party if the organizational weaknesses are rectified.
Assam
During the end of 1970s, the Party emerged as a political force to reckon with and could get 11 members elected to the Legislative Assembly without having any alliance with any major political party. The Party and mass fronts membership also increased during that period. But the Assam agitation and the rousing of the feelings against the religious and linguistic minorities divided the society in Assam. The setback to the Party started during that period. Afterwards, further divisions in society were created on the basis of different ethnic identities. The communal forces became active in Assam. The BJP and RSS are making all efforts to expand their base. There are also efforts to rouse minority communalism. All these factors are posing great difficulties even to sustain the influence we have among the people.
There was some improvement in the work of the state committee, district committees and lower level committees and mass fronts after Assam was selected as one of the priority state. The collective functioning of the state Centre, state committee and most of the district committees and lower level committees also improved. The Party was able to make some progress in certain areas. But after some time, the Party started stagnating and suffered decline even in the traditional bases due to the aggressive identity politics and ethnic conflicts. Our influence among the religious minorities, Bengalis and Bodos also declined during this period.
There is weakness in the functioning of the state committee and state Centre. The state committee should be more proactive to the developments in Assam. It should strive to become the political, ideological and organizational leader of the Party through its active interventions on all issues.
The state committee met only four times in 2014. State secretariat met only 14 times. But there are eight state secretariat members working from the Party state Centre. There is need to hold more meetings of the state committee and state secretariat. The collective work of the state Centre also should be strengthened. There is weakness in timely intervention on political, economic and social issues from the state Centre. On all important issues, the Party should intervene and should organize agitations and struggles. There is also weakness in taking up local/immediate issues at all levels and organizing sustained struggles. The Party took up some social issues such as gender oppression, rights and security issues of the minorities, issues affecting the tribals and backward communities etc. But there is failure on the part of the Party to consolidate the gains made through its interventions.
There is decline in Party membership in the recent period. More efforts should be made to activise the Party members. Only less than 25 per cent Party members were covered in the reporting of the Party Congress documents. The aging of the Party membership is a matter of concern and efforts should be made to recruit more young members. The trade union activities increased and it is reflected in the increase in trade union membership. Women front is able to maintain its strength. There is decline in membership in other mass fronts, particularly youth and student. The students and youth fronts are very weak. Planned efforts should be made to activise student and youth fronts. There are innumerable agrarian problems in Assam that seeks solutions. The kisan front should be able to take up such issues continuously.
Many district committees are not functioning as cohesive bodies and as guiding centres. The weakness of the district committees have to be rectified in order to activise the local committees, branches, Party members and mass fronts.
The trend of parliamentarism is seen at different levels at the time of elections to the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and local bodies elections. Some committees also neglect work in mass fronts and only concentrate in elections. The Party had to take disciplinary action against many members for violation of Party decisions.
Party is bringing out Ganashakti, a weekly organ. It’s circulation is only 3,930. Though many efforts were made to increase its circulation, it has not yielded any results. Both the content and circulation of the organ should be improved.
Karnataka
The CPI(M) in Karnataka state has good possibilities of growth. However, to make use of the favourable situation, more concerted and unified efforts by Party committees and cadres at various levels are necessary. There is some discernible improvement in this direction. But lot more is required and possible. The first step is to unify the state leadership and establish the collective functioning of the state secretariat and the state committee.
There is marginal expansion of the Party which can be seen in the modest growth in Party membership and in the membership of various mass organizations, especially among scheme workers, dalits, devadasis etc. However, more focused organizational work and campaign are necessary. Quality of Party membership and activism among mass organisation members are not up to a satisfactory level.
Class composition of Party membership is generally satisfactory as over 45 per cent is from working class and 35 per cent from agricultural labour and poor peasants. Social composition is also very good as around 30 per cent belongs to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Women are also active in Party with 24.4 per cent in the Party. However, there is still scope for recruiting women scheme workers in the Party in many districts.
Among the mass organizations, working class and peasant organizations have more possibility of growth. Youth and students organizations can also play an important part in providing cadres. In the background of extremist fundamentalist forces, attracting more and more youth and misleading them, Party must pay focused attention in the student and youth fronts. Cultural front is working with a broad approach, though some corrective steps are necessary due to certain unhealthy trends.
Good improvement is visible in taking up social and local issues. The prestige of the Party has increased due to our intervention in such issues. However, follow-up activities to translate it into Party influence is needed.
Party education has to be undertaken in a planned manner. With 60 per cent Party members having joined the Party after 2008, Party education must be given utmost importance.
Circulation of Janashakti is very limited – 2300 copies. Only 1000 Party members subscribe to the Party journal. This needs to be corrected.
The decline in vote share is disturbing, even in our traditional influence bases such as Chickballapur, Gulbarga and Mangalore. The state committee has to select priority districts or areas and concentrate work and resources.
In the local body elections, in certain areas, there is a marginal improvement. Necessary mechanism must be in place for guiding our Party members and sympathizers, who are elected to panchayat raj institutions.
Conscious efforts to recruit cadres from youth and student movements apart from class organizations and women must be taken up with seriousness. Factionalism has been hampering the Party at different levels in the state and, during conferences, this used to get manifested in a brazen manner. In the run-up to the 21st Party Congress, this could be contained to some extent, though the disease is persisting to various extent at different levels. As part of this, different types of violation of democratic centralism have also developed at various levels. State leadership of the Party must tackle this harmful tendency unitedly. Subjective approach of leadership at various levels needs to be curbed. There is some progress in this, but more needs to be done.
Odisha
There has been stagnancy in the growth of the Party and decline in membership in five districts where we have our traditional base. This has to be overcome. For this the main emphasis should be on building local struggles on a sustained basis. This should help to develop the Party and its mass base. There has been some growth recently in new tribal pockets in Malkangiri, Nabrangpur, Gajapathi and Mayurbanj. Overall priority should be given for the work in the tribal areas and to consolidate the organisation and influence. Given the limited resources as against the vast potential in these areas, a re-prioritisation of the annual and long term plan of growth and expansion has to be considered.
For the growth of the party there has to be priority for certain fronts like agricultural workers, poor peasants, tenants, along with construction workers and those in unorganized sector and scheme workers. There has to be special attention to the student and youth fronts which has been neglected for long.
A few social issues were taken up like temple entry for dalits and the bonded labour provided by barbers. But these have been sporadic. There is need for more sustained movements on social issues.
The Party branches, cadres and committees cannot be activised without unleashing class and mass struggles on issues affecting the people. There is lack of cadre planning, proper approach to wholetime cadres and raising funds to meet their needs. In this connection the state committee should take up regular mass fund collection from the people and ensure this is done in the districts.
Out of the total 30 districts in the state, 10 have DCs, 10 others have DOCs and two more have one branch each. Many of the district committees have no functioning Centre. Some districts should be selected as priority for all round development.
Odisha is a state where there was a prolonged struggle against factionalism in the 1990s. Some factional trends resurfaced during the last two state conferences. This can be combated only with an incessant struggle against parliamentarism, liberalism and violations in the application of democratic centralism. Special efforts should be made to strengthen the unified work of the state secretariat.
The drop out of Party membership has been very high in the years 2011-13. This has come down in 2014. This along with the fact that only 40 per cent of the Party members attend branch meetings shows the necessity to improve the quality of Party membership. This requires making the auxiliary groups function, to improving the recruitment and training of Party members.
Jharkhand
Jharkhand is a state which has 26 per cent tribal population. It is also a state with rich mineral resources and the coal industry is the main industry in the state. Therefore, special attention has to be paid to develop the work of the Party and the mass organizations among the tribal people. The TU front should also have priority.
The Party has taken steps to implement some of the decisions and guidelines taken by the previous State conferences related to mass work and organizational tasks. There is improvement in the collective functioning of the Party starting with the State centre. Now nine members of the Secretariat are to function from the State centre. It is necessary to implement this decision and ensure that all these members shift to the Centre.
State Committee is meeting regularly but there is a lack of ideological and even political discussions in the Committee which functions in a routinist way. State leadership must take responsibility to change this situation and ensure enhanced political and ideological discussions in the Committee and the party as a whole. There has been some improvement in the study classes but it needs to be strengthened.
Functioning of district committees must be improved. There are very few districts with a functioning district centre and this adversely affects the functioning of local committees and branches. This is an important task which the Party has to seriously undertake. One of the main problems facing the State is lack of funds. This has a direct bearing on implementation of cadre policy and expansion of party work. From the top to bottom this aspect is not being seriously addressed in spite of repeated decisions for mass collections, it is not happening.
Party membership and membership of the mass organisations have gone up to a small extent. Expanded reach is there among working classes, kisans and among the social groups, new initiatives have been taken on work among adivasis. Mass struggles have also increased in this period including local struggles on pertinent issues of the area.
The key to improvement is the building of the mass organisations. However there are serious weaknesses in the functioning of most of the mass organisations. There are no functioning State centres of a single mass organization in Jharkhand. This is the biggest weakness and severely affects the independent functioning and initiatives for struggle.
Work among working classes is a priority. However organizational weaknesses persist. There is no Central office of the class organization nor are district committees functioning.
Kisan movement has developed through many struggles including some important initiatives against displacement and for land occupation. There is also improvement in the central functioning as more comrades are available at the centre. Potential of membership increase lies untapped.
Among other mass organizations, women’s struggles on gender issues have increased which is also reflected in increased membership. However there is no State centre. A major weakness in mass work is among students and youth. There is no work whatsoever among students except for some sporadic interventions. Among youth also mainly because of organizational weaknesses at the State centre the potential is unrealized.
Among the social groups there is some increase in our work among tribals and a membership based organization has been recently set up.
Uttar Pradesh
The Party organisation, in the biggest state in the country and in the Hindi-speaking region, is very weak. Uttar Pradesh had become the centre of the Hindu communal mobilization which began with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The 1990s also saw the rapid stratification of politics on caste lines. These twin developments marginalized whatever mass base and influence the Party and the Left had in the state. The sum total is there is no growth in the Party’s mass base and the mass movements in the past two decades. Instead, there has been a decline in the capacity of the Party to mobilize people.
Some progress was registered in setting up a functioning state Centre with six secretariat members based in Lucknow. However, the state secretariat and the team at the Centre lack cohesive functioning. Free and frank discussions and arriving at a collective understanding must be nurtured. The Party organisation overall has several weaknesses. Most Party branches are not functioning as an active unit and are not able to initiate activities on local issues. Out of the 11 district committees, only in a few are there active district centres with the district secretary and one or two secretariat members constituting the core. There is need to develop the district committees functioning and that of the district centres.
The experience of selecting priority districts has also not yielded results as there was no real concentration from the Centre nor was the state centre able to deploy adequate cadres and resources for the development of priority districts and fronts.
One of the major weaknesses has been the inability to take up social issues in any worthwhile manner anywhere in the state. The state leadership itself is unable to give the necessary thrust and direction for taking up social issues. This must be corrected.
The state has one of the lowest numbers of wholetimers. The wages paid to wholetimers are too low. Even at the state Centre, a married wholetimer gets only Rs. 3,000 per month. There is no practice of regular fund collection from the people. The state committee should give calls for mass fund collections and all state committee members should personally lead these collection drives.
Among the mass organizations, the agricultural labour organisation has shown some increase in its membership – from 64,370 in 2005-06 to 1.08,172 in 2013-14. Only the women’s organisation shows a degree of independent functioning taking up various issues of women and its membership was 64,284 in 2014. The trade union front has suffered lack of equipped cadre at the Centre and from individual functioning. The student front has not been making progress and the membership is only 6,643.
The lack of new and young entrants into the Party is evident from the poor age composition. Those below 31 constitute only 8.3 per cent. The Party has to pay attention to the student front and recruitment of young activists from the mass organizations.
Rajasthan
After the setback in the last assembly election, there was some weakening in the organisational activities. But this was overcome during the Party conferences. There has been no worthwhile growth of the Party and the mass organisations.
The BJP government’s popularity is declining and the Party has taken up several issues to organise struggles. The possibility of developing mass movements is good and it has to be taken up seriously. This will definitely help the growth of the Party and the mass organisations. The state committee has taken up the organisational direction of the state conference for implementation. Classes have been organised for leading cadres of all mass organisations. These should help strengthen these organisations to implement plans for expansion within a time frame. Sub-committees and fraction committees have chalked out programmes and are guiding them for their implementation. The weaknesses identified in the organisation in the last state conference have to be removed. They are: the Party has still not prepared its cadre policy, provide for proper recruitment, training and maintenance of cadres. Though there is some improved functioning at the level of the state committee, functioning remains weak in some important district committees and at the tehsil level (local committee). The shortcomings in the branch functioning are still a major bottleneck in the Party’s growth. Levy collection is poor. The rectification campaign has remained on paper. There is a lack in taking up social issues. There has been no focused anti-communal campaign addressing specific conditions in Rajasthan. Steps should be taken to remove these shortcomings.
The last state conference witnessed certain factional trends which were manifested in the elections to the state committee. Two members of the panel including a key trade union state level functionary were defeated in an organised manner. It appears that the factionalism which has prevailed in a district for a long time has spread to other areas. This should be tackled and correct organisational process adhered to.
The mass organisations have also not made any breakthrough. Only the student front has registered major growth. But Party building on this front has not been planned properly. The kisan organisation has not reached to the level of its earlier peak. There has been some adverse impact on the trade union front due to some factional tendencies. The agricultural workers union has not spread beyond three districts. There is no growth in the women’s front and the youth front shows a small increase.
A monthly Hindi bulletin has begun publication and there is some improvement in the sale of Party literature.
The Rajasthan BJP government is the most reactionary government in all spheres. It is also attacking democratic rights such as limiting the right of people who can contest the panchayat elections. The Party should be in the forefront in fighting against all the anti-people policies of the government.
The Party has to pay special attention to expanding work in the tribal areas and taking up the issues affecting the dalits, minorities, women and other oppressed sections.
The State Centre has to be strengthened. Meetings of the available secretariat should be held regularly to increase the intervention of the party. The state committee should review the work of the mass organisations regularly. It is necessary to have mass fund collections in cash and kind and build a separate wholetimers fund. Priority task is to improve branch functioning. Party has to scale up the Party education at all levels. It is necessary to assert the principles of democratic centralism in the functioning of the Party committees.
Punjab
The Party in Punjab has great traditions as one of the early centres of the Communist movement in India. When CPI(M) was formed, a large section of the veterans in the Communist movement joined the CPI(M). The Party played an important role in the fight against Khalistani divisive forces and for the unity of the country. Many cadres and leaders had sacrificed their lives fighting against the divisive forces. But the Party has not been able to sustain and expand the movement due to the failure in taking up the immediate issues of the people and organize agitations and struggles.
The lack of collective work at the state Centre and many district centres and the continuing factionalism weakened the Party and mass fronts. The Party had to expel two state secretaries during this period due to violations of Party discipline and misconduct. A major reason for the petty quarrels continuing is the low political-ideological level of the cadres.
The electoral strength of the Party is continuously declining. But it is a fact that whenever we had taken up issues of the common people and approached them, the Party and mass fronts got good response. The Party was able to mobilize financial resources for all India conferences of the mass organizations.
Among the mass fronts, TU front is active and achieving expansion but there is lack of coordination between the Party and TU leadership at the state Centre and in many districts. There is scope for expansion of the kisan and agricultural workers movement. Both these fronts should strengthen the functioning of the state Centres and district committees. Some efforts are being made recently to activise the student and youth Centres. Without activising student and youth fronts, it is not possible to solve the problem of aging of cadres and Party members. The below 31 years comprise only 10.2 per cent at present. The women front is inactive and special attention should be given to activise women’s front. There is weakness in taking up immediate issues of the people and organizing agitations and struggles.
The state secretariat and state committee should make sincere efforts to strengthen the collective work and build mutual trust among themselves. Only a united state leadership can solve the organizational problems in the districts. The leadership should approach issues not on the basis of their personal likes and dislikes but on the basis of organizational principles. The mass fronts should work as independent and democratic mass organizations. The Party leaders, who are working as leaders of the mass fronts, are accountable to the Party and should abide by the decisions of the Party and they should also concentrate on the development of the Party, apart from their mass front work. The women composition is only 6 per cent. Though we have a very strong anganwadi movement and many activists of the anganwadi movement expressed their desire to join the Party, many of the district committees are reluctant to recruit them into the Party. The Party should make special efforts to recruit more women into the Party. The aging of the Party membership and cadres is another organizational problem in Punjab. 44.5 per cent of the Party members are from the Scheduled Castes, but they are not adequately represented in district and state committees.
Gujarat
Gujarat is a state where the RSS-BJP are entrenched and have been able to communalise sections of the middle classes and other sections. In such a situation, there has to be a proper plan drawn up to select priority districts and fronts to concentrate the limited resources of the Party.
Some work has progressed in the tribal areas of Sabarkanta-Aravali districts. Plans have to be chalked out to concentrate work in these districts which have a huge tribal population. Plans should also be made to coordinate work in the tribal areas adjoining Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, where there is some potential. There is a need to take up social issues.
There has been an erosion in the main base of the Party in Bhavnagar especially among the middle class and in other districts as well. But the growing discontent among various sections of the people, especially the youth and peasants can be utilised to build movements and struggles on immediate demands.
There has been no worthwhile growth in the trade union front despite the state being high on the industrial map of the country, with large concentration of industries in some districts.
Immediate attention should be paid to the work in the student and youth fronts, which has been neglected since long. The work among the peasantry should be increased while efforts should be made to organise the agricultural workers separately. There has been some success achieved in mobilizing the anganwadi and Asha workers around their demands. These women activists should be utilised to expand the women’s organisation as well as to penetrate into newer areas.
Steps should be taken to strengthen the functioning of the State Centre. Presently only one Secretariat member is based at the Centre.
The Party branches, cadres and committees should be activised and mass and class struggles unleashed on issues affecting the people.
Work of all the mass and class organisations have to be streamlined.
Party education has to be planned and classes taken from the branch level upwards on a regular basis and in a systematic manner.
A cadre policy has to be framed and steps taken to recruit new cadre from the basic classes and women. A special drive should be conducted to collect wholetimers fund and pay wages to wholetimers in time.
Haryana
Haryana is part of the grain bowl of the country. It was carved out of what was undivided Punjab. In the run-up and aftermath of the partition, there was major large-scale movement of Muslims from this part of the country. So, in spite of certain old RSS pockets, large section of the population were the agrarian castes largely benefited by irrigation projects and the green revolution, the society was largely witness to caste and not communal questions as the major basis for political mobilization. Because of proximity to Delhi, the permit license raj also paved the way for development of new industries especially in areas proximate to the capital in southern parts of the state.
The history of the Party, unlike in Punjab, is comparatively recent. The anti-emergency struggle and the development of the student movement threw up the cadre who have played an important role in the growth of the Party.
With that generation of cadre taking up and building the trade union and the peasant movement, Party started taking shape. Though small in size, one of the major strengths lie in the absence of factional differences and its united nature. The overall influence of the Left has been small and the growth of the Party has been largely through the organized efforts. In the last few years, there has been expansion in the activities of mass and class organizations. The social composition of the Party shows a positive picture with large number of dalits in the Party ranks. The Haryana Party has also been sensitive to rampant attack on the Dalit community and have unfailingly articulated opposition to major atrocities. Women’s movement also remain active in defending and expanding women rights particularly raising questions related to caste-driven agenda of so-called family and community honour.
But these positive developments are yet to be translated into any large-scale enhancement in the levels of political consciousness; neither have the sectional struggles got consolidated in any substantial growth of grassroot level structures of class and mass organizations. This has also hamstrung the recruitment of militants into the Party to the extent possible. Another major drawback has been the inability to develop trade unions in the new industrial centres coming up in South Haryana.
Traditionally, the polity of the state has been largely bipolar divided between Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal of Devi Lal-Om Prakash Chautala. It is only in the last Assembly election that BJP got to make major electoral gains largely by default. Though the CPI(M) is the major Left party, overall, the Left is so weak that the void that was created could not be taken advantage of. Sustained local struggles, prioritizing struggle on agrarian issues, development of trade union-led expansion in South Haryana and democratization of the Haryana society based on social issues and fighting the increased attempts at communalizations will have to remain the major focus.
There is an imperative need to set up a proper Centre of the kisan movement. The student movement which has started regrouping needs sustained attention.
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh has the largest tribal and dalit population among the Hindi-speaking States. It is a State in which the Party should be able to expand its strength if issues are correctly identified and taken up in a systematic fashion. Recently, the Party has been taking up the issue of displacement in different parts of the State where corporate interests are being given a free hand by the State Government to exploit natural resources. The Party has also decided to unite or have links with other groups and social movements that are also involved in these struggles. If we do this work seriously, it will certainly give results. Mostly tribals are being displaced. In its response to the questionnaire, the State Committee has said that our work among tribals is showing some improvement in Jhabua-Ratlam. This is an encouraging sign and the struggles against displacement should be taken up and fought consistently.
There is a lot of stagnation and even a slip-back in many of the districts. This must be remedied. Among the Hindi-speaking States, MP, perhaps, has the largest number of capable, well-educated State-level leaders. They need to be inspired to increase their interventions and to avoid a dull, routineness that has come to dominate much of their work. The work of the state Centre and cohesion of functioning of the state secretariat needs to be improved. Their mutual cordination must increase and they must be encouraged to discuss issues and differences in a frank manner.
These weaknesses of the State leadership are responsible for the extremely low membership of the mass organizations. It is completely unacceptable that there is no mass organization which has a sizable membership. TU Front can certainly show good growth. Recent strikes among coal and steel workers have been extremely successful and saw very large numbers of the non-permanent workers playing the most active and militant role. There is, therefore, very great potential for the development of the TU front. MP (unlike other Hindi-speaking States) still has many large industries in the public and private sector. Our work among the workers must increase and their recruitment into the Party should be made a priority.
Similarly, the agricultural labour organization has not received much attention in the State despite the fact that MP is home to the largest numbers of tribal and dalit landless labour in the country.
The women’s front has been working in the State for the last many decades but the stagnation in membership and movement has to be discussed, understood and dealt with effectively.
The youth and students fronts are in need of similar attention.
Madhya Pradesh Party is also fortunate that it has some of the prominent writers and intellectuals of the State in its ranks. Various forums and also the writers’ organizations must be activised and new talent, specially from tribals and dalits, must be drawn in.
The State Committee has accepted the fact that not much is being done on social issues and also that there is no special effort being made to recruit comrades from the socially deprived sections. These are the areas that will need special efforts so that course correction can be made.
As far as recruitment of young cadres is concerned, the state of affairs is pathetic and must be remedied. Also the fact that 90 per cent of branch members have not read the Party Programme means that the issue of political education for the entire Party has to be an immediate task.
Chattisgarh
The state of Chattisgarh came into being after the division of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh in the year 2000. The population of this mineral rich state includes 33 per cent tribals and 12 per cent dalits. The Maoists have the strongest base in Chattisgarh.
The Chattisgarh state committee since its inception faced acute shortage of politically trained and experienced cadres. Though the activities of the Party have increased, they are mainly symbolic in which participation is limited. Some District Committees have shown initiative to take up some result oriented local issues, but the main weakness remains to unleash sustained struggles on local issues.
The state committee and district committee meetings are being held regularly now and political reporting is done upto this level. Since the political reporting is not done at area committee and branch level, the level of political consciousness of the Party ranks remains very low which has an adverse impact on the entire Party. The mass and class organisations except TU Front which functions regularly, are very weak. The main reason for this is the acute shortage of cadres. The state committee and district committees have to take concrete measures to strengthen the mass organisations and build mass organisations which are non existent in their districts. The task of developing cadres is to be taken seriously.
The youth and student fronts have been non-functional. The Party should pay attention to both these fronts and the student front should have priority.
There is a big scope to develop mass organisations and Party particularly among tribals, peasants and students provided the Party takes up their immediate issues and mobilises them in sustained struggles. For this it is necessary to develop mass approach and line from top to bottom and reorient the Party in this direction. The area committees and branches have a key role to mobilise the mass of the people on their issues. Therefore the Party state centre and district centres have to activate them on priority basis and focus on developing their political consciousness, initiative and their training.
Six state secretariat members out of eight are functioning from the state centre. They have to develop collective functioning and mutual trust in order to revamp and reorient the Party organisation and mass and class organisations. They need also to ensure collective functioning and team spirit at district level as well.
Himachal Pradesh
In Himachal Pradesh, Party was re organized in 1977. At that time, the total membership was 70.The party state committee was elected formally in 1978. Now the total party membership is 2360. The present membership of the mass organization is 1,55,500. Four district committees and two district organising committees are working in the state. 90 comrades are working as whole timers who are comparatively young. The total circulation of People’s Democracy and Loklahar is 600.
In Himachal Pradesh there are two main political parties Congress and BJP. Now there is a Congress government. Till the last election there was a BJP government in the state. During the election there is a polarization between these two parties. We have our main mass base in Shimla and surrounding areas. Our comrades were elected as the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation which enhanced the prestige of the Party in this region. The Party state conference has given a call to form a left and democratic front in state. In this direction the state conference has taken a decision to focus in the priority areas, assembly seats and will work to make entry in the Vidhan Sabha in the coming elections in 2017.
The following organizational tasks decided in the state conference must be taken up for implementation: a) Strengthen the political ideological work. b) Organize struggles from local levels to state level. c) Take up the issues of the dalit, women and tribals. d) Proper ideological political and organizational training for whole timers. e) Update the wholetimer policy. f) Strengthen the Party centers and mass organization centers at all levels. g) Rectification campaign at all levels.
Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts were identified as the priority districts. Kisan sabha and Student front have been selected as priority mass organization in the state. It was also decided to unleash maximum local struggles.
In Himachal Pradesh 90 percent of the population is living in the villages and 68 percent depend on agricultural and horticulture activities. The issues of price and storage of products like apple were taken up by kisan front. The main issue which was taken up was eviction of farmers from the government and forest land after the HP High Court order. Kisan front organized peasants and resisted this drive and the state government was forced to announce that it will frame a policy for the poor farmers. This has enhanced the prestige of the Party in the state. The second important issue was the militant resistance against the forceful acquisition of land for the hydel project and other non-farm projects. Jointly with the working class and peasantry, Party took the initiative, demanding more compensation, for the effected sections. In most of the places the struggles of the peasant and the working class were successful. On different mass issues local struggles were taken up on sustainable basis which helped our Party and mass organizations to gain popular support.
In Himachal Pradesh, student front has developed continuously and is the only front which has statewide organizational network and influence. This front has provided young and educated cadres and wholetimers to the Party. However, since last two years the state government has unleashed brutal attacks against the students who are opposing the large scale privatization and fee hike.
The overall influence of the Party is slowly increasing in the state. In order to enhance the political and ideological level of the Party efforts should be made to organize Party schools and classes. The frequency of meetings of state committee and other Party units have to be increased. The state secretariat members should give more time for Party center work. The militant resistance in the project areas should be converted into the expansion of the Party. The ongoing process of local agitation should be further streamlined. More attention should be paid to recruit young cadres from the student front as wholetimers.
Delhi
Delhi State Committee is taking steps to implement the decisions of the State Conference. There has been some increase in Party membership and most of the mass organisations. Recruitment of women in the Party is a positive feature. The Secretariat and State Committee meet regularly to review and chalk out the work. The Committee has tried to implement a proper wage policy for wholetime cadre. It has succeeded in building a sizeable wholetimers fund.
There have been many local struggles on issues like PDS and civic facilities which have yielded some gains as well. However it has not led to increase in mass influence or mass base of the Party due to weak follow up.
On the TU Front, while work in the unorganized sector has increased, it has decreased among industrial workers. Recently there has been some improvement in industrial areas in both in Ghaziabad and Nodia. More focus in industrial areas is critical for the revival of the TU movement in this region which had been severely impacted by the closure of the bigger industries like textiles etc. Reviving the TU movement in industrial areas is not merely linked to enhancing its striking power; it also has a direct bearing on the class composition and militancy of the Party.
On the Student Front, there was a severe setback, particularly in JNU. Efforts are on to recover lost ground. There are signs of improvement. Among youth there is not a single wholetimer. This affects functioning of the front.
Women’s mass organization has a separate office. Women participate in good numbers in Party programmes. Some important initiatives regarding violence against women and home-based workers have been taken. But the work must be sustained. Work among middle class women that is at present negligible also requires proper attention. In a city like Delhi all these three fronts, women, students and youth have to play a crucial role. The independent functioning of the mass organizations should be ensured. Along with this, as directed by the Party Congress, the trade union front and other area-based mass organizations should set-up community based organizations in selected bastis and working class residential areas to take up multifarious activities. In big cities like Delhi, we have to innovate new forms of area-based organizations.
The Party and mass organizations in Delhi are faced with a severe shortage of cadres, including wholetimers. Party and mass organization committees should discuss concrete ways and means to overcome this lag on an urgent basis.
The main weakness in Delhi is that of the absence of a mass line and mass approach. The Committee in its review of its work has noted the gap between local struggles and fight against Government policies; the weak policy interventions on issues concerning Delhi and also inadequate political propaganda of the Party’s approach to developing issues in the capital. Having identified these weaknesses the Party has to overcome it with appropriate steps.
Jammu & Kashmir
Given the special situation in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, our state committee is trying to build the Party organisation with great difficulties. With each passing day and emerging scenario in the country and particularly in the state sustaining day-to-day works itself is becoming a daunting task. At times, it becomes very difficult to maintain even routine work in worsening social and political situation. The tasks of recruitment of members and organizing them in branches with regular branch functioning, collecting levy and activating them in various mass organisations is to be streamlined. Attention has to be paid to developing collective functioning of the state leadership.
Non-availability of materials in Urdu language remains a major deficiency in educating and equipping our cadres with Marxist ideology. Even though most of the Party members participate enthusiastically in movement and campaigns undertaken by the Party, there is deficiency in ensuring branch functioning on a regular basis. There is weakness in record keeping of various information related to Party organisation in a systematic manner. The state committee and district committees have to seriously work to overcome this weakness.
Democratic functioning of the mass organisations and principle of democratic centralism in Party functioning are two areas which need to be improved. There is no practice of regular mass collection and payment of wage or allowances to the wholetimers. Given the social and political miliem and prevailing inhibitions, recruitment of women is very negligible. Absence of student and women’s organisation is creating a serious impediment in the expansion of Party. In the absence of sub-committees and fractions, the responsibility to guide mass organisations rests on individual level. Coordinated works in mass organisation as well the task of Party building within mass organisations also get affected. There is no shortage of dedication, courage, commitment and the spirit of sacrifice among our comrades. Need is to harness these qualities of our comrade and train them properly. Regular functioning of Party committees at various levels based on organizational principles will help to achieve desired goals.
Uttarakhand
The Uttarakhand state was formed out of Uttar Pradesh in November 2000. At that time, total party membership in the new state was around 500. Owing to our stand on bifurcation of the state, at the initial stage, the Party had to pass through a difficult phase in the midst of the euphoria over formation of new state. But combating such difficulties, in the initial years of formation of state, the Party, through unitedly working for developing various movements on people’s issues, could establish its position as a visible political entity; in that process the Party membership did grow to around 1300 (from around 500) in 2014. But, the tempo of such initiative could not be sustained with a continuity during the subsequent period owing to various factors, both organisational and socio-political.
The main problem identified by the last two successive state conferences of the Party has been the failure to activise the majority of the Party members in the state in regular Party work and the same is reflected in the somewhat dormant activities of most of the mass fronts. Between the last two state conferences, Party membership grew by around 100 in net terms taking into account the droppage. This reflects a situation of virtual stagnation in the Party.
The state committee meets generally at least once in two months on an average, along with interim Secretariat level consultations, and attempts to implement programmes/activities decided by the Central Committee from time to time and also to take up local issues for agitation, campaign and mobilisations. However, failure to take those programmes/activities to all the Party members throughout the state in a planned manner by the district and local committees and involving them in those activities, severely retards such implementation and initiatives for local struggles.
Despite efforts, a functional State Party Centre has not developed yet. This retards the state secretariat’s collective functioning. Initiative is taken to build a state Party office but construction has not yet started. Problem of resources to maintain wholetimers required for central functioning is still there which needs to be addressed.
Among the mass fronts, trade union front is somewhat regularly functioning. There is serious deficit in planned activities and regularity of committee meetings at state, district and union level. This has reflected in virtual stagnation in TU membership in the state during the last three years.
Despite majority of the Party members being formally associated with the kisan front, the peasant’s front is also unable to maintain continuity in its activities, despite there being immense scope of developing state level movements on the problems being faced by the farmers and the continuing migration of farmers from the hills to the plains and also outside the state.
Student front had become almost non-existent four years back. During the last two-three years, situation has changed for the better owing to a good number of students coming in contact in some of institutions in Dehradun and surrounding areas. The Party has started closely monitoring the work in students front.
The women and youth front activities also suffer from stagnation as reflected in the lack of growth of membership over the years and sporadic activities mostly in response to central programmes.
There are certain positive developments as well. Despite all organisational deficiencies, during last devastating cloud-bursts and floods in the state, entire Party could be promptly involved in rescue and relief work and most of the Party members in remote hilly areas actively stood by the affected people. This was appreciated and recognised by the people in the affected areas.
Secondly, the state committee took planned initiative in implementing the call of campaign by the Central Committee during August 2015 which led to involvement of most of the Party branches in the campaign. This was followed by the programme of a good public rally at Dehradun on 25th October 2015 the preparatory campaign for which could involve most of the Party members in the state.
Continuity of such collective initiative along with concrete programme of education, planned propaganda, agitation and mass struggles should bring about substantial improvement in the overall organisational situation in near future.
***
Appendix – I
Statement of Party Membership
|
Name of State |
Year |
|||
|
|
2000 |
2005 |
2010 |
2015 |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
137 |
73 |
228 |
153 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
37,731 |
57,469 |
79,468 |
33,257 |
|
Assam |
10,318 |
11,793 |
14,514 |
13,557 |
|
Bihar |
19,445 |
18,686 |
20,101 |
21,537 |
|
Chattisgarh |
|
1,327 |
1,863 |
1,706 |
|
Delhi |
1,112 |
1,589 |
1,835 |
2,143 |
|
Goa |
65 |
— |
54 |
54 |
|
Gujarat |
2,572 |
3,383 |
3,556 |
4,047 |
|
Haryana |
1,293 |
1,690 |
2,164 |
2,879 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
943 |
1,122 |
1,930 |
2,360 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
650 |
1,391 |
1,654 |
1,948 |
|
Jharkhand |
|
3,900 |
5,698 |
5,582 |
|
Karnataka |
6,327 |
6,980 |
7,528 |
9,875 |
|
Kerala |
2,93,141 |
3,27,839 |
3,62,597 |
4,18,756 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
3,160 |
2,680 |
2,724 |
3,329 |
|
Maharashtra |
8,122 |
11,148 |
12,248 |
12,106 |
|
Manipur |
344 |
418 |
542 |
527 |
|
Orissa |
2,978 |
3,817 |
4,757 |
5,039 |
|
Punjab |
14,510 |
11,503 |
8,830 |
9,221 |
|
Rajasthan |
2,628 |
3,498 |
4,499 |
4,563 |
|
Sikkim |
200 |
80 |
120 |
60 |
|
Tamilnadu |
83,142 |
1,00,610 |
93,792 |
1,06,247 |
|
Telangana |
|
|
|
47,199 |
|
Tripura |
38,222 |
53,836 |
76,374 |
89,570 |
|
Uttarakhand |
|
940 |
1,110 |
1,310 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
5,691 |
6,345 |
6,180 |
5,508 |
|
West Bengal |
2,38,829 |
2,72,923 |
3,19,435 |
2,46,072 |
|
CC Centre |
95 |
94 |
107 |
100 |
|
Total |
7,71,655 |
9,05,134 |
10,33,908 |
10,48,678 |
Class Composition of Party Members
|
Name of state |
Working class |
% |
Agricultural Labour |
% |
Poor Peasant |
% |
Middle Peasant |
% |
Rich Peasant |
% |
Middle Class |
% |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
49 |
32 |
5 |
3.3 |
62 |
40.5 |
2 |
1.3 |
Nil |
Nil |
32 |
20.9 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
10765 |
32.4 |
12867 |
38.8 |
5213 |
15.7 |
5213 |
15.7 |
1377 |
4.1 |
1483 |
4.5 |
|
Assam (13540) |
3321 |
24.5 |
1391 |
10.3 |
5757 |
42.5 |
932 |
6.9 |
32 |
0.2 |
2107 |
15.6 |
|
Bihar (13408) |
6524* |
48.7 |
— |
|
4412 |
32.9 |
1913 |
14.3 |
435 |
3.2 |
— |
|
|
Chattisgarh (1180) |
488 |
41.1 |
31 |
2.6 |
400 |
33.9 |
31 |
2.6 |
Nil |
Nil |
230 |
19.5 |
|
Delhi |
1594 |
74.4 |
1 |
0.04 |
8 |
0.4 |
— |
|
— |
|
504 |
23.5 |
|
Gujarat |
2047 |
50.6 |
894 |
22.1 |
580 |
14.3 |
98 |
2.4 |
3 |
0.1 |
425 |
10.5 |
|
Haryana |
1126 |
39.1 |
541 |
18.8 |
327 |
11.4 |
142 |
4.9 |
12 |
0.4 |
631 |
21.9 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
523 |
22.2 |
122 |
5.2 |
914 |
38.7 |
372 |
15.8 |
15 |
0.6 |
296 |
12.5 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
213 |
10.9 |
21 |
1.1 |
655 |
33.6 |
461 |
23.7 |
24 |
1.2 |
564 |
28 |
|
Jharkhand (5391) |
1376 |
25.5 |
888 |
16.5 |
2709 |
50.3 |
215 |
4 |
2 |
0.04 |
125 |
2.3 |
|
Karnataka (9863) |
4776 |
48.4 |
2196 |
22.3 |
1754 |
17.8 |
598 |
6.1 |
2 |
0.02 |
535 |
5.4 |
|
Kerala |
246115 |
58.8 |
89456 |
21.4 |
29898 |
7.1 |
32621 |
7.8 |
1301 |
0.3 |
9301 |
2.2 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
1729 |
51.9 |
258 |
7.8 |
990 |
29.7 |
155 |
4.7 |
2 |
0.1 |
95 |
2.9 |
|
Maharashtra |
1618 |
13.4 |
1967 |
16.2 |
6205 |
51.3 |
1333 |
11.0 |
321 |
2.7 |
490 |
4.0 |
|
Manipur |
48 |
8.9 |
42 |
7.8 |
128 |
23.8 |
105 |
19.5 |
— |
|
215 |
40 |
|
Odisha (4019) |
820 |
20.4 |
837 |
20.8 |
1763 |
43.9 |
258 |
6.4 |
23 |
0.6 |
307 |
7.6 |
|
Punjab |
1623 |
17.6 |
3348 |
36.3 |
2713 |
29.4 |
846 |
9.2 |
95 |
1 |
497 |
5.4 |
|
Rajasthan (3410) |
868 |
25.5 |
172 |
5 |
792 |
23.2 |
1419 |
41.6 |
8 |
0.2 |
151 |
4.4 |
|
Tamilnadu |
50135 |
47.2 |
29591 |
27.9 |
15444 |
14.5 |
3890 |
3.7 |
295 |
0.3 |
5910 |
5.6 |
|
Telangana (46737) |
14220 |
30.4 |
15502 |
33.2 |
9465 |
20.3 |
5097 |
10.9 |
372 |
0.8 |
1285 |
2.7 |
|
Tripura |
22971 |
29.1 |
20351 |
25.8 |
17422 |
22.1 |
3864 |
4.9 |
252 |
0.3 |
9728 |
12.3 |
|
Uttar Pradesh (2203) |
379 |
17.2 |
396 |
18 |
719 |
32.6 |
336 |
15.3 |
28 |
1.3 |
340 |
15.4 |
|
Uttarakhand |
Not available |
|||||||||||
|
West Bengal |
41231 |
16.9 |
40164 |
16.4 |
55934 |
22.9 |
19079 |
7.8 |
1480 |
0.6 |
71105 |
29.1 |
|
CC Centre |
9 |
9.5 |
Nil |
|
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
11 |
11.6 |
|
Total |
414568 |
|
221041 |
|
164264 |
|
78980 |
|
6079 |
|
106367 |
|
* Combined figure of working class and agricultural workers
Social composition of Party Membership
|
Name of state |
Membership |
Male |
% |
Female |
% |
Muslim |
% |
SC |
% |
ST |
% |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
153 |
131 |
85.6 |
22 |
14.4 |
5 |
3.3 |
Nil |
|
Nil |
|
|
Andhra Pradesh (33203) |
33257 |
26696 |
80.4 |
6507 |
19.6 |
2241 |
6.7 |
9127 |
27.5 |
4381 |
13.2 |
|
Assam |
13557 |
10814 |
79.8 |
2743 |
20.2 |
2436 |
18 |
1355 |
10 |
1303 |
9.6 |
|
Bihar |
21537 |
20726 |
96.3 |
811 |
3.8 |
1703 |
7.9 |
3915 |
18.2 |
1212 |
5.6 |
|
Chattisgarh (1238) |
1706 |
1043 |
85.1 |
195 |
15.9 |
Nil |
|
165 |
13.5 |
350 |
28.5 |
|
Delhi |
2143 |
1577 |
73.6 |
566 |
26.4 |
260 |
12.1 |
474 |
22.1 |
|
|
|
Goa |
54 |
Not available |
|||||||||
|
Gujarat |
4047 |
3458 |
85.4 |
589 |
14.6 |
273 |
6.7 |
451 |
11.1 |
604 |
14.9 |
|
Haryana |
2879 |
2587 |
89.9 |
292 |
10.1 |
72 |
2.5 |
942 |
32.7 |
Nil |
|
|
Himachal Pradesh |
2360 |
2107 |
89.3 |
253 |
10.7 |
19 |
0.8 |
500 |
21.2 |
76 |
3.2 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
1948 |
1913 |
98.2 |
35 |
1.8 |
1665 |
85.5 |
30 |
1.5 |
6 |
0.3 |
|
Jharkhand |
5582 |
4976 |
89.1 |
606 |
10.9 |
481 |
8.6 |
1274 |
22.8 |
1516 |
27.2 |
|
Karnataka (9819) |
9875 |
7378 |
75.1 |
2441 |
24.9 |
825 |
8.4 |
2219 |
22.5 |
1168 |
11.8 |
|
Kerala |
418756 |
352305 |
84.1 |
66451 |
15.9 |
41748 |
10 |
67810 |
16.2 |
6110 |
1.5 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
3329 |
2802 |
84.2 |
527 |
15.8 |
110 |
3.3 |
704 |
21.1 |
817 |
24.5 |
|
Maharashtra |
12106 |
10019 |
82.8 |
2087 |
17.2 |
549 |
4.5 |
1092 |
9 |
5974 |
49.3 |
|
Manipur |
527 |
495 |
93.9 |
32 |
6.1 |
9 |
1.7 |
31 |
5.9 |
7 |
1.3 |
|
Odisha (4019) |
5039 |
3601 |
89.6 |
418 |
10.4 |
65 |
1.6 |
757 |
18.8 |
645 |
16 |
|
Punjab |
9221 |
8671 |
94 |
550 |
6 |
68 |
0.7 |
4146 |
44.5 |
22 |
0.2 |
|
Rajasthan (3363) |
4536 |
3181 |
94.6 |
182 |
5.4 |
205 |
6.1 |
159 |
4.7 |
649 |
19.3 |
|
Sikkim |
60 |
Not available |
|||||||||
|
Tamilnadu |
106247 |
87906 |
82.7 |
18341 |
17.3 |
2657 |
2.5 |
32818 |
30.9 |
2042 |
1.9 |
|
Telangana |
47199 |
39397 |
83.5 |
7802 |
16.5 |
1972 |
4.2 |
12233 |
25.9 |
5446 |
11.5 |
|
Tripura |
89570 |
67539 |
75.40 |
22031 |
24.60 |
4429 |
5.6 |
15292 |
19.4 |
28235 |
35.8 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
5508 |
5077 |
92.2 |
431 |
7.8 |
334 |
6.2 |
678 |
12.6 |
13 |
0.2 |
|
Uttarakhand |
1310 |
|
|
|
|
80 |
6.1 |
140 |
10.7 |
30 |
2.3 |
|
West Bengal (244546) |
246072 |
219083 |
89.6 |
25463 |
10.4 |
39940 |
16.3 |
56413 |
23.1 |
13443 |
5.5 |
|
CC Centre |
100 |
81 |
81.0 |
19 |
19.0 |
1 |
1.0 |
5 |
5.0 |
Nil |
|
|
Total |
1048678 |
883563 |
84.72 |
159394 |
15.28 |
102147 |
9.79 |
212730 |
20.4 |
74049 |
7.1 |
Appendix – II
Membership of Mass Fronts
TU Front
|
Name of State |
2000 |
2005 |
2010 |
2012 |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
1,613 |
2,727 |
3,073 |
3,544 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
1,76,481 |
3,07,615 |
5,46,862 |
5,31,705 |
|
Assam |
54,102 |
59,651 |
84,355 |
1,07,245 |
|
Bihar |
14,831 |
22,415 |
13,654 |
28,033 |
|
Chattisgarh |
16,521 |
17,496 |
18,259 |
17,027 |
|
Delhi |
36,033 |
29,511 |
31,930 |
42,637 |
|
Goa |
1,216 |
551 |
894 |
628 |
|
Gujarat |
5,562 |
12,588 |
15,525 |
16,462 |
|
Haryana |
23,929 |
48,483 |
87,457 |
99,166 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
8,789 |
16,996 |
41,971 |
42,010 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
533 |
6,376 |
5,781 |
6,296 |
|
Jharkhand |
42,473 |
43,634 |
92,323 |
1,22,803 |
|
Karnataka |
81,465 |
1,19,713 |
1,88,064 |
2,25,886 |
|
Kerala |
9,82,762 |
10,69,798 |
14,43,808 |
15,55,327 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
8,917 |
24,005 |
30,280 |
43,749 |
|
Maharashtra |
65,417 |
81,571 |
1,25,130 |
1,66,179 |
|
Manipur |
|
|
331 |
|
|
Orissa |
21,411 |
82,885 |
1,11,037 |
1,07,228 |
|
Punjab |
88,071 |
79,971 |
1,02,301 |
1,09,893 |
|
Rajasthan |
34,276 |
31,228 |
40,514 |
44,313 |
|
Sikkim |
|
370 |
|
|
|
Tamilnadu |
2,70,835 |
3,30,856 |
5,28,842 |
5,11,437 |
|
Tripura |
58,219 |
1,34,215 |
1,85,465 |
2,03,848 |
|
Uttarakhand |
3,729 |
15,657 |
19,167 |
37,006 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
17,041 |
25,791 |
17,947 |
25,083 |
|
West Bengal |
11,11,011 |
14,15,192 |
14,97,049 |
12,18,213 |
|
Total |
31,25,237 |
39,79,295 |
52,32,019 |
52,65,718 |
Kisan Front
|
Name of State |
2000-2001 |
2005-06 |
2010-11 |
2013-14 |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
|
4,693 |
1,305 |
1,200 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
1,83,360 |
2,89,620 |
3,65,957 |
1,82,650 |
|
Assam |
1,67,709 |
1,88,554 |
1,95,398 |
1,52,065 |
|
Bihar |
1,24,393 |
2,40,147 |
2,89,532 |
3,24,605 |
|
Chattisgarh |
3,790 |
5,953 |
3,817 |
6,000 |
|
Gujarat |
7,300 |
15,700 |
20,420 |
13,630 |
|
Haryana |
17,500 |
25,400 |
1,10,063 |
53,950 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
11,200 |
20,750 |
52,000 |
40,548 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
4,000 |
25,000 |
41,000 |
50,000 |
|
Jharkhand |
22,760 |
35,601 |
76,200 |
72,341 |
|
Karnataka |
85,667 |
1,51,840 |
2,57,692 |
2,70,000 |
|
Kerala |
17,96,520 |
23,81,730 |
35,07,242 |
44,43,989 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
39,897 |
33,262 |
32,540 |
53,319 |
|
Maharashtra |
1,40,334 |
2,01,114 |
2,35,234 |
2,25,978 |
|
Manipur |
10,000 |
2,220 |
3,860 |
2,670 |
|
Orissa |
30,850 |
1,07,557 |
1,13,920 |
50,207 |
|
Punjab |
1,39,700 |
1,51,250 |
1,55,660 |
60,000 |
|
Rajasthan |
68,524 |
1,63,543 |
2,54,216 |
2,04,057 |
|
Tamilnadu |
3,50,000 |
4,64,300 |
6,33,570 |
7,64,327 |
|
Telangana |
|
|
|
90,720 |
|
Tripura |
2,27,820 |
4,05,210 |
4,99,022 |
5,51,389 |
|
Uttarakhand |
|
24,700 |
33,000 |
22,125 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
1,24,500 |
2,03,371 |
2,39,392 |
2,21,564 |
|
West Bengal |
1,11,29,955 |
1,48,78,146 |
1,53,47,553 |
81,53,022 |
|
AIKS Centre |
|
6 |
7 |
7 |
|
Total |
1,46,86,579 |
2,00,19,667 |
2,24,68,600 |
1,60,10,363 |
Agricultural Workers Union Front
|
Name of State |
2000-2001 |
2005-06 |
2010-11 |
2013-14 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
4,40,000 |
11,12,972 |
15,14,960 |
16,05,912 |
|
Bihar |
47,000 |
78,310 |
90,280 |
1,48,340 |
|
Gujarat |
|
2,500 |
|
2,200 |
|
Haryana |
11,500 |
14,780 |
35,000 |
33,850 |
|
Karnataka |
8,730 |
49,310 |
1,07,546 |
1,57,240 |
|
Kerala |
15,49,233 |
17,50,570 |
21,34,639 |
22,45,569 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
3,000 |
2,600 |
|
1,200 |
|
Maharashtra |
49,800 |
74,430 |
1,26,530 |
1,18,922 |
|
Orissa |
4,620 |
14,100 |
25,640 |
24,042 |
|
Punjab |
67,000 |
91,485 |
1,70,520 |
1,92,100 |
|
Rajasthan |
7,000 |
22,000 |
23,500 |
36,000 |
|
Tamilnadu |
2,09,225 |
2,81,734 |
5,09,546 |
6,61,642 |
|
Tripura |
1,10,000 |
1,85,501 |
2,34,009 |
2,55,320 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
70,000 |
64,370 |
82,332 |
1,08,172 |
|
Total |
25,77,108 |
37,44,662 |
50,54,502 |
55,90,509 |
Women’s Front
|
Name of State |
2001 |
2005 |
2010 |
2014 |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
|
|
|
|
|
Andhra Pradesh |
3,04,900 |
5,10,000 |
5,27,200 |
2,54,000 |
|
Assam |
25,000 |
67,638 |
78,625 |
71,570 |
|
Bihar |
25,000 |
35,000 |
56,154 |
61,495 |
|
Chattisgarh |
|
1,450 |
2,050 |
1,900 |
|
Delhi |
60,746 |
67,322 |
31,555 |
38,450 |
|
Goa |
|
|
470 |
|
|
Gujarat |
35,000 |
13,000 |
30,253 |
31,000 |
|
Haryana |
17,326 |
30,500 |
45,110 |
35,544 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
2,000 |
5,750 |
14,725 |
12,180 |
|
Jharkhand |
7,500 |
30,025 |
60,250 |
75,150 |
|
Karnataka |
11,333 |
23,450 |
60,323 |
1,14,934 |
|
Kerala |
17,37,240 |
24,96,342 |
39,26,620 |
47,23,261 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
6,100 |
13,061 |
20,734 |
13,012 |
|
Maharashtra |
50,099 |
70,037 |
92,048 |
83,661 |
|
Manipur |
—– |
3,500 |
3,000 |
3,248 |
|
Orissa |
10,500 |
24,393 |
35,000 |
32,680 |
|
Punjab |
40,000 |
27,814 |
32,500 |
30,500 |
|
Rajasthan |
15,300 |
17,000 |
14,577 |
12,992 |
|
Tamilnadu |
3,28,219 |
4,65,247 |
6,27,864 |
6,50,826 |
|
Telangana |
|
|
|
2,79,880 |
|
Tripura |
2,05,000 |
4,16,200 |
5,49,235 |
6,44,100 |
|
Uttarakhand |
3,800 |
9,650 |
7,252 |
9,000 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
35,000 |
51,570 |
56,862 |
64,284 |
|
West Bengal |
34,07,298 |
47,11,816 |
58,44,815 |
35,47,632 |
|
Total |
63,27,361 |
90,90,765 |
1,21,17,222 |
1,07,91,299 |
Youth Front
|
Name of State |
2000 |
2005 |
2010 |
2014 |
|
Andaman & Nicobar |
|
|
|
|
|
Andhra Pradesh |
2,22,000 |
4,92,001 |
4,09,264 |
82,586 |
|
Assam |
56,264 |
78,192 |
38,625 |
21,916 |
|
Bihar |
71,804 |
1,07,591 |
1,26,278 |
58,720 |
|
Chattisgarh |
|
1,290 |
Nil |
— |
|
Delhi |
6,755 |
28,690 |
12,423 |
17,485 |
|
Gujarat |
8,006 |
18,000 |
20,375 |
22,000 |
|
Haryana |
17,005 |
10,100 |
18,192 |
14,000 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
12,364 |
17,432 |
19,700 |
24,722 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
21,200 |
80,562 |
Nil |
35,427 |
|
Jharkhand |
15,100 |
26,745 |
58,520 |
61,225 |
|
Karnataka |
39,705 |
85,162 |
96,638 |
87,766 |
|
Kerala |
44,03,081 |
45,31,020 |
49,41,618 |
49,35,041 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
10,190 |
9,632 |
7,985 |
15,928 |
|
Maharashtra |
71,794 |
91,684 |
90,367 |
70,683 |
|
Manipur |
3,321 |
3,021 |
4,030 |
2,750 |
|
Nagaland |
|
|
7,000 |
|
|
Orissa |
34,882 |
35,388 |
21,750 |
22,150 |
|
Punjab |
67,518 |
44,211 |
30,100 |
45,200 |
|
Rajasthan |
29,345 |
41,852 |
72,180 |
50,193 |
|
Sikkim |
|
|
Nil |
100 |
|
Tamilnadu |
6,09,305 |
7,50,196 |
9,28,885 |
8,76,191 |
|
Telangana |
|
|
|
1,46,000 |
|
Tripura |
2,63,331 |
5,01,879 |
7,02,250 |
7,95,364 |
|
Uttarakhand |
|
5,170 |
6,800 |
5,246 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
24,006 |
41,547 |
51,540 |
40,808 |
|
West Bengal |
52,84,272 |
83,55,887 |
84,92,180 |
40,44,383 |
|
Centre |
|
5 |
5 |
4 |
|
Total |
1,12,71,248 |
1,53,57,257 |
1,61,56,705 |
1,14,75,888 |
Student Front
|
Name of State |
2000-2001 |
2005-06 |
2010-11 |
2013-14 |
|
Andhra Pradesh |
3,17,515 |
6,59,047 |
9,42,461 |
10,86,651 |
|
Assam |
24,057 |
24,387 |
19,899 |
20,777 |
|
Bihar |
21,627 |
26,075 |
46,050 |
30,000 |
|
Chattisgarh |
|
1,463 |
Nil |
Nil |
|
Delhi |
2,038 |
2,900 |
4,294 |
2,450 |
|
Gujarat |
5,275 |
Nil |
Nil |
Nil |
|
Haryana |
11,479 |
14,663 |
8,240 |
17,829 |
|
Himachal Pradesh |
17,723 |
17,995 |
21,000 |
33,911 |
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
250 |
|
Nil |
Nil |
|
Jharkhand |
1,521 |
8,104 |
9,136 |
9,666 |
|
Karnataka |
75,054 |
91,633 |
83,949 |
1,11,508 |
|
Kerala |
8,15,896 |
9,35,312 |
12,67,863 |
13,17,538 |
|
Madhya Pradesh |
7,500 |
Nil |
5,210 |
4,500 |
|
Maharashtra |
31,518 |
33,603 |
35,335 |
57,589 |
|
Manipur |
6,100 |
3,314 |
|
|
|
Orissa |
3,701 |
4,012 |
8,412 |
4,438 |
|
Punjab |
8,300 |
11,700 |
8,241 |
9,150 |
|
Rajasthan |
27,050 |
34,742 |
51,060 |
57,390 |
|
Tamilnadu |
95,766 |
1,47,185 |
1,81,240 |
3,18,792 |
|
Tripura |
78,000 |
1,39,169 |
1,69,601 |
2,18,141 |
|
Uttarakhand |
|
7,500 |
7,672 |
8,168 |
|
Uttar Pradesh |
10,064 |
8,558 |
6,170 |
6,463 |
|
West Bengal |
9,03,571 |
14,23,377 |
13,02,158 |
7,31,699 |
|
CEC |
|
74 |
4 |
4 |
|
Total |
24,64,005 |
35,94,813 |
41,77,995 |
40,46,660 |
Appendix – III
Particulars of Party Members at All India Level
(Based on 2015 membership renewal)
a) Male : 8,83,563 (84.72) Female: 1,59,394 (15.28) (Out of 10,42,957)
b) Total members in 2014 : 10,58,750
(Out of 10,14,354)
Party members : 9,10,624
Candidate members : 1,03,730
Number of Party
Members dropped : 72,031 (7.9)
Number of Candidate
Members dropped : 18,201 (17.5)
Number of Candidate
Members promoted : 79,513 (76.7)
c) Total members in 2015 : 10,48,678
(Out of 10,46,975)
Party members : 9,41,515 (89.9)
Candidate members : 1,05,460 (10.1)
d) Age distribution (Out of 10,28,779)
Upto 25 years : 65,398 (6.36)
Between 26 to 31 years : 1,40,504 (13.66)
Between 32 to 50 years : 5,07,500 (49.33)
Between 51 to 70 years : 2,87,148 (27.91)
Above 70 years : 28,229 (2.74)
e) Year of joining the Party (Out of 10,20,508)
Before 1947 : 221 (0.02)
1947 to 1963 : 4,214 (0.41)
1964 to 1976 : 26,934 (2.64)
1977 to 1991 : 1,67,358 (16.4)
1992 to 2008 : 3,77,629 (37)
After 2008 : 4,44,152 (43.52)
f) Class composition (based on occupation) (Out of 10,21,526)
Working class : 4,14,568 (40.58)
Agricultural labour : 2,21,041 (21.64)
Poor peasant : 1,64,264 (16.08)
Middle peasant : 78,980 (7.73)
Rich peasant : 6,079 (0.6)
Middle class : 1,06,367 (10.41)
Landlord : 384 (0.04)
Bourgeois : 1,745 (0.17)
Wholetimer of the Party/
Mass fronts : 10,139 (0.99)
g) Class origin (Out of 9,31,977)
Working class : 3,64,995 (39.16)
Agricultural Labour : 2,33,355 (25.04)
Poor Peasant : 1,58,273 (16.98)
Middle Peasant : 83,179 (8.93)
Rich Peasant : 4,428 (0.48)
Middle Class : 84,174 (9.03)
Landlord/Bourgeois : 1,061 (0.11)
h) Educational background (Out of 10,22,568)
No formal schooling : 76,570 (7.49)
Upto class 5 : 1,78,162 (17.42)
Upto class 10 : 4,63,844 (45.36)
Intermediate/Pre-degree
/Higher Secondary : 1,68,426 (16.47)
Graduate : 1,07,447 (10.51)
Post-graduate : 27,886 (2.73)
i) Income (Out of 10,26,283)
Upto Rs. 1,000 : 2,58,918 (25.23)
Rs. 1,001 to 5,000 : 5,25,673 (51.22)
Rs. 5,001 to 10,000 : 1,53,651 (14.97)
Rs. 10,001 to 20,000 : 54,103 (5.27)
Above Rs. 20,000 : 27,090 (2.64)
j) Number of —
Scheduled castes : 2,12,730 (20.32)
Scheduled tribes : 74,049 (7.1)
k) Number of comrades belonging to minority communities:
Muslims : 1,02,147 (9.79)
Christians : 52,977 (5.06)
l) Number of comrades working in different mass fronts : ————-
(Out of 10,13,576)
Working class : 2,12,294 (20.95)
Kisan & Agricultural
Workers Union : 3,52,116 (34.74)
Women : 1,21,027 (11.94)
Youth : 1,66,233 (16.4)
Student : 19,134 (1.89)
Cultural : 13,415 (1.32)
Middle class employees : 42,381 (4.18)
Appendix – IV
Relevant portion of PB Circular (No.9/2004) issued on August 14, 2004 on constitution of committees
Constitution of Committees
The norms for constituting district committees with the powers specified in the Party constitution should be as follows:
a) There must be at least 200 Party members (including candidate members) to constitute a district committee. There should be atleast 10 to 15 branches in that district for the status of a district committee to be given. (In very small states (in terms of population) and other special factors, these norms can be relaxed with the approval of the Central Committee.)
b) Till then only district organising committees should be formed. Where there are 3-5 branches in an area within such a district, a local committee can be constituted.
c) A district organising committee with local committees in certain areas should be the pattern of functioning till a full-fledged district committee can be constituted.
d) State Committees should provide norms for the size of the local/intermediate and district committees. Some guidelines –to give uniformity in size for Party committees based on and the strength of the movement, the membership etc should be framed.
As per the guidelines set out by the Central Committee before the 17th Congress, those states which have upto a thousand members will constitute State Organising Committees. These states are 1.Manipur 2.Goa 3.Sikkim 4.Andaman & Nicobar, 5.Jammu &Kashmir 6.Uttarakhand.
Appendix – V
December 28, 2002
PB Circular No. 21/2002
To All State Committees
On Renewal of Party Membership of 2003
Dear Comrades,
As per the provisions of the Party Constitution and Rules made under it, the annual check-up of Party membership and renewal must be completed by 31st March, 2003.
The 17th Party Congress took certain important decisions on this matter. On the basis of the provisions of the Party Constitution, Rules made and the decisions of the 17th Party Congress, the following guidelines shall be observed:
1. The annual check-up and renewal of Party membership should be completed by March 31, 2003. The state committees must deposit the membership fee with the Centre by 31st May, 2003. The state committees should fix the dates of the completion of the annual check-up and renewal of membership at the branch level and the scrutiny at the intermediate levels and district level.
2. The Party branch/Party Committee should hold its meeting for annual check-up and renewal of Party membership with proper prior preparations. The renewal of Party membership should be based on the attendance of the Party members in branch meetings, general body meetings, Party classes and Party and mass organisation activities. All branches/committees should keep records of the activities of each member and the minutes of the deliberations and decisions of the annual check-up and renewal for scrutiny by the higher committees. The branches/committees should hold the meeting for annual check-up and renewal in the presence of a higher committee member.
3. Any Party member who, for a continuous period and without proper reasons, has failed to take part in the activities of the Party and mass organizations, pay Party dues shall be dropped from Party membership. The unit concerned which wishes to drop a member must do so only after giving the member a chance to explain his/her position. The unit should convey the decision to drop the member in writing to the higher committee. There shall be a right of appeal against the decisions on droppage from Party membership who is aggrieved by the decision.
4. A report on check-up of Party membership and renewal by a branch/committee should be sent to the next higher committee for confirmation and registration. The higher committee, while confirming and registering the membership, must examine the list of droppages and gives its specific opinion on the same. The district committee should submit their scrutiny of Party membership and renewal report to the state committee, so that it can finalise its report.
5. The Party branch/committee should collect Rs. 2/- as membership fee and the levy fixed as per the Rules. If a member doesn’t pay the membership fee in due time, or, deposit his/her levy within three months after its due, his/her name shall be removed from the Party rolls.
6. At the time of renewal, each member should fill a renewal form which includes basic data such as name and address, age, year of joining the Party, educational qualification, income, front and other details.
7. The membership record of all Party members/candidate members/auxiliary group members should be kept under the supervision of the district committee. While the final authority for veracity of the records and its authenticated copy will be the district committee, the maintenance of records can be delegated to the intermediate/local committee in a state, if so decided by the state committee concerned.
8. Auxiliary group should be organized under branches/committees and should provide political and organizational education to new recruits and monitor their activities. Candidate members should be recruited only through auxiliary group.
9. District committees/intermediate committees should organize annual review of the branch functioning at the time of renewals based on the guidelines chalked out by the state committees. The state committee should prepare detailed guidelines for this purpose.
10. Party branches and the respective Party committees should submit a consolidated statement on the particulars of the Party members as shown in the annexure to the next higher committee at the time of annual check-up and renewal.
With greetings,
Yours comradely
Sd/-
(Harkishan Singh Surjeet)
General Secretarary
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