People's Democracy

ANIL Biswas, secretary, Bengal unit of the CPI(M) stressed on sharpening of the ongoing political-ideological struggle in Bengal as elsewhere to counter and overwhelm the anti-communist propaganda of the ruling classes and their running mates.

"Party education", pointed out Anil Biswas, "is the weapon-of-choice for the Party comrades to equip themselves enough to participate in and make an impact on the political-ideological struggle going on."

Anil Biswas addressed a meeting of the Party School in the afternoon of December 11, run for the past two-odd years by the Howrah district unit of the CPI(M). The present session of the school drew to a conclusion with Anil Biswas’s address. The Party School had come up following the direction given by the central and state units of the CPI(M) some time back.

Anil Biswas was quite categorical in stressing the kind of virulent attacks that were orchestrated against the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and on the concept and practice of socialism the world over.

Should the Party workers not be adequately equipped with the correct political-ideological knowledge base, said Biswas, it would be difficult for them to forge struggles to counter the assault.

The CPI(M), declared Anil Biswas, firmly believed in the struggle for fundamental social changes although it was also aware that the task would not be completed in the twinkling of an eye. It would be an arduous struggle ahead and one must prepare oneself for it.

Communists must remember all the while that only through socialism could a society free from exploitation of man by man could be set up. Through class struggle alone, the heinous system of class exploitation could be done away with.

Anil Biswas had little doubt in his mind that the developmental work undertaken by the Bengal Left front government was very much a part of the class struggle going on. Communists do not believe in temporary relief of an ad hoc nature. It would never do to lose one’s long-term perspective by getting oneself bogged down in the task of providing the people with interim relief in a pro tem basis.

However, it would an exercise of ultra-Leftism if one shunned the task of relief and chose to put such work off until the revolution was established. It was necessary, pointed out the Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), to continue with the tasks of industrial and agricultural development, and with leading a drive for widening of the infrastructural facilities.

It was all a question of perspective and priority because the CPI(M) subscribes to the view that the developmental work done should be pro-people and especially pro-poor. The programme of struggle and the programme of development must be viewed in the proper way.

In undertaking developmental work, the task of bringing about fundamental social changes must not be lost sight of in any manner. Otherwise, warned the CPI(M) leader, there was great danger of being entrapped in the morass of reformism, and shunning the path of revolution. The aim should be to convert into a revolutionary force the power of the downtrodden and the poor.

Referring to his recent visit to Cyprus where Anil Biswas had gone to represent the CPI(M) at the 20th Congress of the AKEL, he pointed to the numerous instances of former communist leaders renouncing Marxism-Leninism and scientific socialism and yet leading governments and participating in the anti-imperialist struggle currently sweeping Europe and the greater Middle East. These forces would sadly prefer to refer themselves as ‘neo’-Left, ‘neo’-communist, and ‘neo’-socialist.

Anil Biswas said how he had pointed clearly out in the addresses he had delivered while in Cyprus that the CPI(M) would never deviate from the path of scientific socialism and would ever abide by the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

Countering vigorously the attack launched on the CPI(M) from the right and the left, Anil Biswas said that the CPI(M) was not a bourgeois party because ‘we adhered to and practiced Marxism-Leninism.’ Nor was the CPI(M) in any sense adventurist because it was sharply aware of both the objective conditions prevailing, asserted Anil Biswas.

Among the CPI(M) leaders who addressed the concluding session were Sridip Bhattacharya (who is the secretary of the Howrah unit of the CPI-M), and Pitabasan Das who presided over the session.