People's Democracy

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


Vol. XXXIV

No. 27

July 04, 2010

WEST BENGAL

 

CPI(M) Calls for Strenghtening

of Struggles and Movements

B Prasant

 

IN its recent two-day meeting at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in Kolkata, held over June 26-27, 2010 the Bengal CPI (M) probed the recent political events, spoke about organisational matters, and issued a call for augmentation of struggles and movements across the state – for uplift of the poverty-ridden, for progress, for development, and for strengthening grass-roots’ level democracy. 

 

The Bengal unit of the CPI(M) never minced words to conclude also, especially while reviewing the results obtained in the civic polls, that the most salient feature of the tasks ahead would comprise refurbishing a wide and deep mass contact with the people, especially with and amidst the poor and the downtrodden, something that has always been a hallmark feature of the Party organisation’s political initiative.

 

A total of 34 members of the state committee took part in the discussion.  Biman Basu, secretary, Bengal unit of the CPI(M) spoke on certain important political-organisational issues. His conclusions were brief but strikingly relevant. He said that the political campaign-movement that had preceded the succeeding elections that took place in Bengal, for the Lok Sabha, for the panchayats and for the urban and semi-urban civic bodies, never quite penetrated the consciousness of the masses enough, and would thereby affect adversely, along with other factors, the task of building and rebuilding mass contact in ever wider circles.

 

Biman Basu also pointed out appropriately enough in the backdrop of the Bengal political scene, that the intimacy of relations with the poor that had always marked the Communist Party’s political-organisational activities was found to be absent in places, vital and important.  Yet, the results of the polls presented a variegated statistical aggregate.

 

In places where the Party had lost ground in the Lok Sabha, and the panchayats, the picture was favourable when looking at the civic poll results.  The vote share of the Left Front showed an uneven curve across the state, even within a civic body, ward-based.  The CPI(M) Polit Bureau member had two succinct points to make by way of conclusion.  First, the Party must forge ahead with renewed confidence by accelerating organisational initiative, and playing thereby a conscious historical role in the interest of the masses.  Second, equally important in the circumstances that prevail, the unity and integrity of the Bengal Left Front must be further enhanced and widened.

 

Chief minister and Polit Bureau member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also, like Biman Basu, noted the distance created between the Party and the poor people.  He, however, believed that this is not the general picture, as prevailing in Bengal at this point in time.  Yet, Buddhadeb too thought, that the chief political task that lies ahead in the days to come, must comprise of rebuilding the bridges with the poor.  There must not be development sans struggle and movements based on the class basis, and yet, one has also to recall that the struggles and movements assume larger dimensions as developmental programmes are implemented. One must learn and learn well from events and circumstances, draw the correct lessons, exercise prudence, and then forge ahead.

 

Buddhadeb explicated the priority sectors of the state Left Front government.  He informed the meeting that the government prioritises the following:

 

The state committee identified the following tasks:

 

 

The state committee has focussed attention on the following organisational matters