People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXVI

No. 31

August 12,2002

Party Membership Continues To Rise In Bengal

 

B Prasant

 

IN West Bengal, the CPI(M)’s membership went on increasing over the scrutiny period of 2001-02. A full six months before the end of the year, the CPI(M)’s membership in the state stood at 2,43,184. Of these, there are 2,22,432 party members and 20,752 candidate members. The figure will move up considerably once a significant part of the Auxiliary Group members (numbering 1,27,832) win candidate membership during the course of the year. The CPI(M)’s state secretary Anil Biswas released these figures to the media recently.

  The scrutiny report has the following highlights:

  1) 22,145 men and women joined the CPI(M) during the scrutiny period.

  2) From the viewpoint of class origin and/or occupation, more than half of the party members belong to the working class.

  3) The majority of party members belong to the age group of 25-40 years.

  4) The total number of party branches stands at 24,884.

  5) The number of party wholetimers has gone considerably up.

  The scrutiny report revealed that 1,36,191 party members represent the working class --- industrial workers or landless agricultural workers --- either by class origin or by occupation or both. 

 

Over the recent past, a big percentage of the party members has come from the middle classes. The report depicted that 60,878 party members represent the middle classes. These party members include a big chunk of students and youth, apart from teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists and lawyers.

 

The age-based break-up of the party membership reveals that the Bengal unit of the CPI(M)’s character of a “youthful party” continues:

 

Up to 30 years   36,285  
30 – 45 years 1,19,651  
46 – 60 years 64,140  
61 – 70 years 11,866  
Above 70 years 2,752  

  

The scrutiny report also dealt with the periods in which people joined the CPI(M):

 

Prior to 1942  43  
1942-46   129  
1947-59  959  
1960-63  711  
1964-69  5,658  
1970-76       14,183  
1977-85  63,544  
1986-1995 88,888  
1996 onwards 64,106  

     

                            

[Note: 746 members failed to mention the year of joining the party.]

 

The scrutiny report noted that the number of CPI(M) wholetimers has gone up during the period 2001-02. There are at present 3,408 wholetimers working on such fronts as trade union, Kisan Sabha, AIDWA, SFI, DYFI, science, culture, literature, literacy, etc.

 

The period of scrutiny witnessed 22 party members being done to death by the forces of reaction and Left sectarianism. The Bengal unit of the CPI(M) expelled 294 party members during the period while cancelling the membership of 6,879 more on various grounds.