Which Path CPI (M) Going to Take in its 20TH Congress?

Which Path CPI (M) Going to Take in its 20^TH Congress?

The statements of the two leading members of the Polit Bureau of CPI(M), Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri at Kolkata yesterday, on the occasion of their Central Committee meeting to finalize the draft Ideological document and Political Resolution have provided sufficient indications regarding the orientation CPI(M) is going to take in the coming days.

Firstly, the statement of Yechuri that the draft documents are going to be published for public debate is a positive one. The CPI(ML) which had started this practice from the time of its All India Conference at Bhopal in 2009 and later continued more effectively during its recent Ninth Party Congress in November 2011 at Bhubaneswar, welcome this as a positive step. Publication of the draft documents by the political parties in advance providing opportunity not only for its own members, but also for the people to discuss them and put forward opinions and subject them for a public debate will help the democratization of the political process. All progressive and democratic sections should raise their voice to make it a common practice among all political parties. And we appeal to all organizations who call themselves left to take initiative in this democratization process.

The other aspects of their statements show that in spite of taking trouble to come out with an ideological document, CPI(M) is not going to make any basic changes in its ideological positions pursued for long. While stating that the prolonged crisis of finance capital shall intensify the contradictions emphasizing that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism, as all the left organizations are re[eating nowadays, the way out Karat is proposing is basically that of China, Vietnam and Cuba. He has stated that central planning will be continued with market forces allowed to play their role. That is he is not going beyond “socialism with Chinese characteristics” followed by the Chinese leadership which has become “ neo-liberalism with Chinese characteristics” When he says that “ after the experience of socialism in 20^th century we have to go through a different phase of developing socialism, by not going beyond the models in China or Vietnam or even limiting to models of countries like Venezuela, he is not making any critical analysis of the erstwhile experiences of socialist construction or of neo-liberal policies followed in the models he is citing. He is not  putting forward the need for developing a socialist alternative to development correcting the shortcomings of erstwhile experiences of the former socialist countries, basically differing from the imperialist perspective of development which is devastating the masses of people and nature.

From the statements already made by Karat and other leaders, it is clear that they are only going to fulfill an obligation taken up in the last Party Congress and they are not ready to change their  neo-revisionist policies which have degenerated to social democratic ones during the last four decades. In this context we appeal to all genuine left forces to come out with bold critiques of the draft documents of the CPI(M) as soon as they come out.  The CPI(ML) has raised three basic questions on which a great debate and decisions are required in the course of taking up the ideological challenges confronting the international communist movement: Firstly, the question of an alternative to imperialist global system including its so-called development model up to neo-liberalism, overcoming the mistakes of hitherto socialist practice. Secondly, the question of developing the concept of proletarian dictatorship to transcend the best models of bourgeois democracy and to achieve proletarian democracy ensuring all power to the people based on the discussion initiated by Marx and Lenin. Thirdly, the question of integrally linking the tasks of building socialism in each country with the  spirit of proletarian internationalism, towards building a world without imperialist system and which is advancing to communist future. And of course, all these have to be linked with the concept of seizure of political power in a country like India which is neo-colonially devastated during the last six decades, without an ideological struggle for establishing the line of which all other ideological exercises become meaningless.

This occasion should be utilized to put forward a revolutionary line of capturing political power under the  leadership of the proletariat and an alternative to imperialist perspective of development, to develop a debate on the specific nature of the socio-cultural-economic-political struggles to be taken up for achieving a socialist future. As called by the Ninth Congress, the CPI(ML) is duty bound to take up this debate and we appeal to all left forces and all those concerned with the future of our country and of human kind to actively participate in it.

K.N.Ramachandran.

General Secretary, CPI(ML)

Dated 18^th January, 2012.

www.cpiml.in