WE are going through a period marked by complexities. On the one hand, the trade union movement the world over has become stronger. Nationally, the role of the trade unions in resisting the encroachments made on the hard-earned rights of the working class is making the capitalist classes to run into increasingly wider forms of resistance as the trade union movement goes forward.

Internationally, the working class solidarity is clearly seen in the manner in which the trade unions across the continents have joined hands. And they have been engaged in thwarting the designs of international corporate capital and its adjuncts by setting warning bells ringing for the ruling classes on such landmark occasions as those witnessed in Seattle, Ottawa, Washington, and Davos. On the other hand, the unpleasant truth elsewhere must be faced. Resistance notwithstanding, corporate capital has gone on impoverishing the working people and has been amassing wealth by forcing the dictates of the worst features of the so-called "market economy" on the people of the world in general and of the developing nations in particular.

The capitalist intervention has produced jobless growth. Poverty has increased manifold. Imbalance in economic growth is seen even amongst the developed nations. More alarmingly, the TNCs have started to take on the cloak of political control by taking full advantage of the weakening of the economic and financial base of such countries as the United States, where economic recession is proving a huge embarrassment for the ruling classes.

In this complex scenario, the role of a Communist Party becomes extremely important as far as the functioning of the trade unions is concerned. We believe that a Communist Party has a well-defined role to play in the struggle of the working class. The foremost task here comprises the raising of the level of political consciousness of the working class and to go onward to the more critical task of inculcating revolutionary socialist class-consciousness. Trade unions function as organs of daily struggle for an effective defence of the economic interests of the working class under specific conditions. While defending the daily interests, a Communist Party aims at providing the correct leadership in drawing the trade unions into the larger realm so that they can play their historic political role in the revolutionary struggle.

A Communist Party attaches vital importance to the defence of the daily economic interests of the working people. Also, it firmly believes in the building up trade unions as mass organisations. But most of all, a Communist Party must measure its own success and the success of the working class movement by three indices:

First, the level of revolutionary consciousness created during the course of the daily struggles of the trade unions;

Second, the advancement of the Marxist-Leninist party among the workers;

Third, the ability of the party to provide the trade union leadership with correct directions as far as the development of the trade union movement as such is concerned.

We recall, in this connection V I Lenin’s dictum about the trade unions being the "schools of communism" and "builders of the socialist state" (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 10, Moscow, 1973, p 256).

A worker can be said to have developed class consciousness when he believes that his struggle is a struggle of emancipation not just against a particular employer. It is a part of the larger struggle against the capitalist system that must be overthrown by launching a consistent political struggle as well.

It is this class consciousness that a Communist Party has to inculcate in its activists working on the trade union front in the course of the struggles.

The task of a Communist Party in the trade unions is to lead the workers from the elementary trade union consciousness to this higher consciousness. The communists achieve this goal by forming the vital, living link between the economic and the political struggles.

In India, the dysfunctional economic scenario has become more and more depressing as the BJP-led union government bows to the dictates of not merely the World Bank, IMF and the WTO but also to the encroachments organised by the TNCs in the core sectors of the national economy.

The Indian ruling classes, led by big bourgeoisie, are actively collaborating with imperialist-dominated globalisation process. The economy is opened up in the widest form imaginable to the powerful forces of corporate capital. The state-run sector is being allowed to be taken over by the private sector. Attempts are made to launch wide-ranging attacks on the hard-earned rights of the working class.

In this gloomy backdrop, in the states where the Left Front is in office, i e, in Tripura and West Bengal and till recently in Kerala, the trade union movement, with the correct guidance from the communists, has been by and large successful in at least partly frustrating the anti-worker designs of the corporate capital.

The electoral triumph of the Left Front government for the sixth straight time in West Bengal has been backed by the manner in which the bulk of the working class decided to exercise their franchise in favour of a pro-people, especially pro-poor Left Front. Another important example nationwide has been the united struggle of trade unions against the attempt at privatising the Bharat Aluminum Company (BALCO) by the BJP-led union government. Among the trade unions active in the BALCO struggle were those that own political loyalty not only to the BJP but also to some of the partners of the BJP in the union government. The one-day strike in the western Indian state of Maharashtra witnessed a similar coming together of trade unions, cutting across political affiliations, to protest against the economic, financial and industrial policy of the BJP-run union government.

However, there is little room for self-satisfaction. As the developing scenario gets more and more complex, and deviations raise their ugly heads, although marginally, even in the trade union movement, we have to exercise more caution, and to sharpen both the ideological and material contents of the struggles ahead.

Unevenness of the levels of political consciousness among the working class itself can cause and has caused embarrassments in the coordinated progress of the trade union movement. The communists have a crucial role to play here.

Then again, nationally as well as internationally, the enthusiasm with which the trade unions have been engaged in organising movements piecemeal against what are the effects or fall-outs of the capitalist system, has not been matched so far by a concomitant and sustained campaign against the cause, i e, against the capitalist system itself, which has to be overthrown to clear the way towards the greater tasks ahead.

The danger of separatism and religious fundamentalism interferes seriously with the unity of the working class. In countries like Spain, Belgium and Greece, the emergence of ethnicity as a counter-productive thrust has certainly harmed the unity of the trade union movement. The balkanisation of what had once been Yugoslavia along lines of religion, ethnicity and geography has caused harm to the working class solidarity to the extent that direct military intervention by the US imperialism and its lackeys was not able to produce any form of unity among the workers of the south-east and north-central Europe.

In our country, the advent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gone on to foment communal sentiments across the country. With the ideological backing of such fanatic organisations of religious majoritarianism as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP-led union government has been indulging in covert and overt operations to bring out the worst facets of Hindu fundamentalism in the country.

Here, too, the role of the communists is of considerable significance. We are proud that, under the guidance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the trade union movement in India has partly negated the attempt made by BJP, RSS et al to disunite the working class struggles. We are glad to announce that even the trade union owing political loyalty to the BJP has chosen to describe the liberalised economic policy of the BJP-run union government as a "handiwork of criminals."

There is another aspect, too, to which one should draw the attention of this assemblage.

The street level actions against the forays of corporate capital have been partly dominated, at least numerically, by the myriad of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) the world over. The NGOs that are engaged in such laudable activities as protection of the environment and the upholding of the rights of men and women need all the praise and help they can get. But there is, increasingly, another group of NGOs that seek to usurp the rights of the trade unions by making strenuous efforts to appear "on behalf of the trade unions" in organising street demonstrations.

This is a situation loaded against the rights of the trade unions. By seeking to push the movements and struggles right into the lap of provocative actions, the NGOs offer the ruling classes the weapon with which to crush the same movements by resorting to wanton violence.

The lethal plastic bullets and the liberal use of a virulent variety of "tear gas" in Vancouver and Quebec, that in total claimed the lives of 16 trade union activists, is an important pointer in this direction. In India too, struggles against the neo-liberal economic policies are being met with increased repression. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, three people were killed in police firing on those protesting against the World Bank-sponsored hike in power tariff.

Here the role of the communists assumes important dimensions. By correctly guiding the trade union movement against the big danger being posed by the international corporate capital, the communists can and should so shape the struggles as to emphasise the overall strength of the movement rather than the occasional adventurist foray that may win the accolades of an irresponsible media but will also send wrong slogans to the working class.

This has to be borne in mind when we discuss the role of the communists and the trade unions in the context of the defence of trade union rights, in particular.

To conclude, we reiterate that a Communist Party has a positive role to play in the functioning of the trade unions. By linking the daily struggles with the major political issues looming before us, a Communist Party has a historic role to play in helping the trade union movement to come out of the confines of economism and reformism, and lead it to play the historic role in the days ahead towards bringing about changes in the existing capitalist system and eventually for its overthrow.