People's Democracy

Readership Base Of Party Organs Must Be Further Widened

COMMUNIST Party organs have an integral role to play in the task of extending the mass base of the Party. Communist movements and struggles can never be conducted without a strong political presence of the Party publications. Biman Basu, state secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) said this at the Rabindra Bhavan auditorium in Coochbehar town recently.

Biman Basu’s address was part of the campaign launched across the Coochbehar district by the district unit of the CPI(M) for increasing the circulation and readership of the daily Ganashakti. The Communist Party has its specific political-ideological outlook. The Party works for the interests of the oppressed and exploited masses. In this task, the Party organs and Party publications have a crucial role to play in building up the campaign. The daily Ganashakti fulfils this role throughout Bengal.

Biman Basu said that the Communist Party must march forward drawing lessons from the situational reality that prevailed and evolved. Everyday fresh experience can be gained in terms of conducting campaigns, struggles, and movements. The Party organs help make the progress smoother, was how the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member would put it.

Biman Basu pointed out that the corporate media played a key role in propagating the idea and practice of imperialism and imperial globalisation. There has evolved what can be called information imperialism. In this background, it was nearly impossible to conduct struggles and movements without a widening mass base of the Party organs. Biman Basu referred to the role played by the weekly organ of the Bengal CPI(M) Deshahitaishee in the sixties and later in buttressing the political-ideological struggle that raged across Bengal with attacks on the CPI(M) from the reactionary and revisionist right and the sectarian left.

Dwelling on the aggressive nature of imperialist moves of late, Biman Basu spoke on the dangers involved in the nation’s efforts to creep closer to US imperialism. The speaker referred to the 123 agreement, the joint military exercises, and naval programme comprising four nations. He declared that two big jathas would reach Visakhapattanam from Bengal and Tamilnadu on September 8. Earlier, September 4 would witness a campaign-programme across Bengal making the people aware of the danger posed to the nation by the foreign policy of the Congress-led UPA government. September 1 would be commemorated as the anti-war day.

Other speakers at the meeting were Ganashakti editor Narayan Dutta, and CPI(M) leaders Chandi Pal and Dinesh Dakua (who took the chair). The district unit of the CPI(M) handed over Rs 3 lakh for the distressed people of Nandigram who were still out at the relief camps unable to return home because of Trinamul Congress’s intransigence and violence. (BP)