People's Democracy

FOLLOWING the adoption of the Draft Political Resolution on March 21 evening, general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet introduced the Draft Political Organistional (Polorg) Report in the morning session on March 22. Incidentally, this turned out to be one of the most absorbing sessions of the party congress.

As several issues discussed in the Draft Polorg Report were already covered by the Draft Political Resolution, Surjeet did not go into their details. These included the current international situation, the deepening crisis in capitalist countries, the US drive to hegemonise the world, growing protests against the IMF-World Bank-ITO policies, Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people, etc. These also included the BJP-led NDA government’s anti-people and anti-national policies, the communal drive being pushed through by the Saffron Brigade with the overt and covert support from the central government, and the like.

The most important issue which Surjeet took up for discussion was the question of expansion and consolidation of the party, particularly in the states where the party and the Left movement in general are already weak. This is a question that has been taken up by all the party congresses so far. But the problem still persists, which shows that we are ourselves lacking something somewhere.

The figures of party membership, of the membership of various mass organisations led by the party and of the votes received by the party in some of the elections do show the dismal state of the party in the country taken as a whole. For example, membership of the party increased from 7,17,645 at the 16th party congress to 7,96,073 at the end of 2001, on whose basis the 17th party congress was held. This amounts to a 10.9 per cent growth in the intervening three and a half years. But behind this growth figure lurks the sad reality that the three traditionally strong states, viz West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, account for the bulk of this increase of 78,428. The fact is that these three states plus Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu account for more than seven lakh membership, while there are only about 85,000 members spread over the rest of the country.

The reality appears still grimmer when we look at the vast Hindi belt of north India. While this vast region accounts for a very big chunk of the Indian population, the CPI(M) is quite weak in this belt. Party membership is not even a fraction of the total population here. Party membership in the Hindi-speaking states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh increased from 30,820 in 1991 to 36,926 in 1998, but then it declined by 2.9 per cent to 35,830. The importance of expansion and consolidation in this region was well highlighted by the Salkia plenum on organisation, held in 1978-end. But the problem still persists and we have been unable to make a breakthrough in this region. There is a continuous decline in membership in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, with UP accounting for a 15 per cent fall. Bihar too witnessed a decline in membership after the 16th party congress. Nor can other Hindi-speaking states boast of a substantial increase either.

The same pathetic situation is seen in regard to mass organisations’ membership, the veteran CPI(M) leader pointed out. While the total membership of the mass organisations led by the party has increased by 8.7 per cent, from 3,73,45,535 before the 16th congress to 4,05,94,829 before the 17th congress, the vast Hindi belt witnessed only a paltry increase of only 0.5 per cent --- from 12,64,391 to 12,71,188. However, even this latest figure is below the membership figure of 12,83,564 that existed just before the 14th party congress.

The percentage of votes polled by the party has also suffered a decline in the last decade. While the CPI(M) polled 4.4 per cent of popular votes in the 1967 Lok Sabha polls, it reached the highest of 6.6 per cent in 1989 but polled only 5.4 per cent in the 1999 mid-term Lok Sabha polls. There has been no substantial increase in the CPI(M)’s electoral strength in any state. In fact, leaving West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura apart, our electoral strength has gone down in other states.

Moreover, even if there is some increase in the overall party membership and in the mass organisations’ membership as a whole, it has not been reflected in our electoral influence. In fact, the total votes polled by the party are only about half of the membership of our mass organisations.

This situation draws our attention to a number of weaknesses in the party’s organisation and functioning. For example, while we have conducted and led a number of agitations and struggles in the last 37 years, the fact remains that the party or mass organisations have not been able to rally their members entirely or substantially. In some states, a section of party members remain inactive even during important activities including election campaigns. Sometimes, whole branches have been found inactive.

Further, a good chunk of the members of our mass organisations are not with the party in political terms. They are in these organisations because of their realisation that these fight for their economic demands. However, they do not even vote for the party, leave alone taking part in our campaigns and agitations. The reason is that in many places we have failed to politically educate these sections and turn them into party members or sympathisers. This economism would not lead us anywhere, Surjeet warned.

Lack of ideological education among party members, their consequent inability to apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete situations in their respective areas, weaknesses regarding democratic functioning of the mass organisations, deviations from or violation of democratic centralism in the party’s functioning, the corroding influence of parliamentarism, etc, are some of the other causes of the party’s continuing weakness.

As one of the main issues at the 17th party congress, the CPI(M) general secretary took up the question of united front tactics that we have been following so far, in the last two decades in particular. After the Jalandhar congress directive to forge broad resistance to authoritarianism on the one hand and to forge the unity of Left and democratic forces through struggles on the other, we followed in all the states the united front tactics with various bourgeois-landlord parties. The purpose was to meet the immediate goal of defeating either the congress or the BJP.

There is no doubt that the united front tactics are necessary for achieving certain objectives and to gain access to the masses who follow the other parties. But the matter of utmost concern is that despite our prolonged use of united front tactics and electoral understanding with bourgeois-landlord parties, we have not been able to make much headway. This was a point which Surjeet particularly laboured during his presentation. Quoting figures regarding our electoral performance in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the Polorg Report too pinpointed how there was erosion of our mass base in certain areas. The same can be said about Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka too. The state conferences of the party, held during the run-up to the 17th congress, also reviewed the experience of united front tactics.

Overall, we confined the united front tactics to the electoral sphere in the main, and there was lack of emphasis on developing united fronts for joint struggles on mass issues. We treated many of the electoral understandings as more or less permanent alliances. We have been unable to demarcate our position from other parties even if they are our allies. We stopped our work after a joint agitation or election campaign is over and failed to maintain links and dialogue with the cadres and masses following other parties. These are some of the major drawbacks of the way we have been implementing the united front tactics during the last two decades or so.

It is here that the question of our progress towards building a Left and democratic front and then a people’s democratic front comes to the fore. Having explained the basic difference between these two fronts, Surjeet categorically said that building a people’s democratic front is not on our immediate agenda. The Jalandhar congress directive visualised the formation of a Left and democratic front and then converting it into a people’s democratic front over time. But we have not made much headway in building a Left and democratic front either.

This brings us to yet another weakness --- that about developing independent activities of the party by launching struggles and sustaining them on partial demands. But the fact is that even all-India calls and state-level calls are observed in a ritualistic, symbolic way. The need is to reorient the party units at the local and district levels to take up the problems facing the masses and launch sustained struggles. For this, local level initiative of the cadres needs to be released. This must also be accompanied by sustained political work and ideological education in order to win over the masses. "This work," as the Polorg Report put it, "is an important part of independent activity which is totally neglected."

Another important aspect of the problem is that "independent activity and united front tactics are interconnected." Without our independent activity, we cannot increase our strength, cannot project our independent stand on vital issues, and this blurs our independent identity. Nor can we influence our allies or overcome their vacillations, if any, or gain access to the masses following them. We enter united fronts with bourgeois-landlord parties from a weak position, are forced to give in to their demands, and sometimes even lose our own cadres to them. In such a situation we cannot forge a Left and democratic front which is a class alliance, much less convert it into a people’s democratic front and effect a people’s democratic revolution in the country. Hence to adopt a correct approach about the united front tactics and independent initiatives is one of the most vital tasks today, Surjeet stressed.

But if the formation of a Left and democratic front is not an immediate possibility, what has the party to do to meet the present-day challenge? Here, Surjeet briefly narrated our experience since the 13th congress that gave the slogan of defeating the Congress(I) and isolating the BJP. But the fact is that the BJP’s strength increased since then and it was already in power at the centre when we held our 16th congress. The Draft Political Resolution has already dealt in detail with the performance of the BJP-led NDA government as well as the communal depredations of the Sangh Parivar during the last four years. Here Surjeet took up the question of our relationship with the Congress party that became a big issue after the Vajpayee government was pulled down in April 1999. At that time, given the strength of various parties in Lok Sabha, the CPI(M) decided to extend support to a Congress-led government from outside. But the Samajwadi Party, RSP and Forward Bloc opposed it. However, after the Congress party failed to form a government, it refused to consider any other option, for example, of supporting a non-BJP, non-Congress government. This only went to the advantage of the BJP that formed yet another government after the mid-term polls.

Surjeet here clarified that as far as economic policies are concerned, there is little difference between the BJP and the Congress(I), and for the CPI(M) there is no question of supporting these policies. Hence going in for a united front or electoral alliance with the Congress(I) is ruled out. Yet, particularly on the question of communalism, the Congress(I) and the BJP cannot be bracketed together even though the former has been adopting vacillating positions about or even capitulating before the communal forces. This must be kept in mind while working out tactics from time to time.

However, there are many non-Left, non-BJP parties which can indeed play a role in stalling the growth of the BJP or even defeating it. The question is: Where these should go? It is thus that there is the need of evolving a third alternative to meet the current challenge. The four Left parties and the Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal (Secular) have of course formed a Lok Morcha (People’s Front), but it can only partially meet the requirements of the situation. There is need to further strengthen the Lok Morcha. Here the vacillating attitude adopted by the CPI in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab was also mentioned in brief.

After the special conference of the CPI(M), held in Thiruvananthapuram in October 2000, updated the party programme in the light of the post-1964 developments, a question has been coming up about the Statement of Policy that used to be printed along with the 1964 programme. Surjeet took up this question too, before concluding his presentation. He narrated the situation in which the special conference of 1951 had adopted the Perspective Tactical Line, of which the Statement of Policy formed a part. Even before the withdrawal of the Telangana armed struggle, three distinct lines had emerged in the united party regarding the path of revolution in India. While the Andhra comrades were in favour of the Chinese model of revolution, some leading comrades were advancing another line, and Ajoy Ghosh, S A Dange and Ghate advanced a third line. Finally, the party sent a four-member delegation to hold consultations with the CPSU that then commanded unparalleled prestige in the international movement. This delegation consisted of Ajoy Ghosh, S A Dange, M Basavapunnaiah and C Rajeswara Rao. Stalin too joined the dialogue on a few occasions. In the end, the agreed conclusion was that our party has to follow neither the Russian path nor the Chinese path but the Indian path, keeping in view the concrete situation within the country.

This satisfied all the party comrades, served to unite them, and was the main pivot of the party programme as well as the Perspective Tactical Line that were adopted by the special underground conference, held with two delegates from each state, without any dissenting voice. Subsequently, the 3rd (Madurai) congress of the party also endorsed these documents.

However, the programme and the Statement of Policy described the stage of revolution as anti-imperialist and the contradiction of this understanding with the then existing reality soon came to the fore. Hence the 1951 programmatic document was informally shelved. Finally, after the party’s reorganisation in 1964, the new party programme gave up this understanding and consequently a clarificatory note was appended to the Statement of Policy.

The Central Committee discussed the question of updating the Statement of Policy in January 2002 and came to the conclusion that the "updated party programme has dealt with all the strategic questions and the path for developing the revolutionary movement." More than 50 years after it was originally adopted, the "Statement of Policy cannot be carried alongwith the updated programme as a companion document setting out the perspective tactical line." In fact, we have to assess the situation in different areas before formulating our immediate tactics from time to time.

After Surjeet introduced the Polorg Report, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member S Ramachandran Pillai threw light on certain other aspects of the report. His presentation dealt with the position of membership of the party and of mass organisations, the class and social composition of the party, the share of women in the membership, our electoral strength, and the like. He said state reports show an improvement in the class composition of party membership as the share of basic classes (working class, poor peasants and agricultural labourers) has increased in many states. Similarly, the proportion of scheduled castes and tribes in party membership has also increased since the 14th congress. Yet much remains to be done to increase the proportion of minorities, particularly the Muslims, and of women in the total membership.

Age-wise, more than half of party members in many states are 40 years old or less. A big majority of members joined the party after 1985 and a substantial bulk of that in the 1990s. This means that a heavy responsibility devolves upon all the party units from top to bottom to arrange for political-ideological education of these cadres.

During his presentation, Pillai also stressed the need of activating the dormant party branches, strengthening the local, zonal, area and district committees, strengthening the state centres, streamlining the agit-prop work of the party, strengthening democratic centralism, increasing the circulation of party papers and other publications, etc. Factionalism in Kerala and Punjab were specifically dealt with. Streamlining the collection of party levy that is a symbol of a member’s commitment to the party, influence of parliamentarism and the need of a continuing rectification drive were among the other main issues taken up in the Polorg Report. Pillai then informed about what tasks the party leadership has set up for the days to come. These included strengthening the party centre, updating the resolution on ideological issues, constitution of a commission to write a history of the party, and a review of the documents on mass organisations. Creation of a permanent party school is also under consideration.