Independent Left Assertion and the 23rd CPI(M) Party Congress - An Analysis
~The Diligent Editorial Team
While the downward organizational and electoral
slope of the CPI(M) since its 2018 Hyderabad Congress raised expectations of
voices of dissent against the policies of alliance with the Right at the 2022
Kannur Congress, the utter silence of the participants caused great dismay
among the revolutionary cadres. The only criticism came from three Central
Committee members Com. B V Raghavulu (Andhra Pradesh), Com. S Veeraiah and Com.
Arun Kumar (Telengana). Citing Com. Lenin, they have jointly stated in their
report that CPI(M) is exhibiting politics of reformism. As a solution to this
crisis, they proposed extra-parliamentary struggles to be the main focus of the
party. The trio quoted from the chapter on organization (Chapter VIII) of
‘Foundations on Leninism’ and called for revamping party organization along the
lines of 1967 resolution of the Central Committee. They accused the party of
carrying forward the previous organizational tendencies of the CPI and
practicing federalism at the state levels (especially West Bengal) defying the
Central Committee directives. They also stated the 2016 and 2022 electoral
alliances with the INC in West Bengal as instances of defiance of the principle
of Democratic Centralism and not in consonance with the political line of the
party. While advising of a conscious effort to include more tribals and
minorities in the party leadership, the trio has warned that incorporation of
candidates in the leadership on the basis of identity would eventually foster a
representative structure for a game of numbers. Hence, greater inclusion of
tribals and minorities in the leadership should be on the basis of their
contributions on the ongoing movements. Furthermore, they have advocated for
quality than quantity, of a stronger role of the Polit Bureau, independent
assertion of the party [accepted by the party: 23rd Congress Political
Resolution: “2.172
i) Party must prioritise the strengthening of its independent role,
expanding its influence and political intervention capacities through sustained
class and mass struggles. Special attention must be paid to strengthen local
struggles on people’s problems with proper follow-up.”] and rejection of
electoral maneuvering with the Right. Com. Arun Kumar has said, ‘Do what we
were meant to do’.
On the question of the INC, the 23rd Congress Political
Resolution states,
“2.136
Congress: The Congress party represents the interests of the Indian
ruling classes – bourgeoisie and landlords led by the big bourgeoisie. In
states where it heads governments it continues to pursue neo-liberal policies.
2.137 Its political influence and
organisational strength has been declining and currently it is plunged in a
series of crises with defections of several leaders to the BJP in various
states. While it proclaims secularism, it is unable to effectively mount an
ideological challenge to Hindutva forces and often adopts a compromising
approach. A weakened Congress is unable to rally all the secular opposition
parties.
2.138 The Political Resolution of the 22nd
Congress had stated (Para 2.89) that with the BJP in power and given its basic link
to the RSS, it is the main threat. So both the BJP and Congress cannot be
treated as equal dangers. However, there cannot be a political alliance
with the Congress party”. To add, Prakash Karat has upheld this notion in his
speech during the proceedings of the Party Congress. However, the political
bankruptcy of the West Bengal State Committee and their complete disregard for
the party decision of avoiding a political alliance with the INC has not been
criticized. The situation becomes more complex when we quote a few lines of the
22nd Central Committee analysis of the 2021 legislative
assembly elections: Review of Assembly Elections, 2021: “Sanjukta
Morcha & Alternative Government: The Central Committee had decided that the
Party can have electoral adjustments with others to maximise the pooling of
anti-BJP, anti-TMC votes. But during the course of the campaign the seat
adjustments with the Congress Party and the Indian Secular Front were projected
under the terminology of Sanjukta Morcha as a United Front calling for an
alternative government. This was wrong and not in consonance with the CC
understanding.
The Sanjukta Morcha cannot be any permanent
structure or a United Front with a common manifesto or programme. During the
elections a joint appeal was issued seeking people’s support for its candidates”. Such a harsh critic was
not intended towards the Mahagatbandhan formed just prior to the Bihar
legislative assembly elections of 2020, owing to its electoral success based on
the corrupt RJD's manipulations amidst an anti-incumbency wave against JD(U).
The root cause of this complexity has been the ideological jugglery and
language conundrum that emerged at the Hyderabad Congress through the rephrasing of 'without having an
understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress party' to 'without
having a political alliance with the Congress party' in the resolution
statement [The same resolution statement also bore the following words: “2.116 (vii) Given the serious challenge posed by the
Hindutva forces both inside and outside the government it is essential to build
platforms for the widest mobilisation of all secular and democratic forces. The
emphasis should be on building unity of people to fight the communal forces at
the grassroots. These are not to be seen as political or electoral alliances.
Similarly, broad unity to fight against the authoritarian attacks on democratic
rights should be forged”].
This ideological jugglery has helped the pro-Congress Yechury faction to
exercise state-level federalism and escape even a proper intra-organizational
criticism at the subsequent Kannur Congress. The path towards future marriage
with the INC, RJD and other right wing regional leadership remains open through
the following carefully orchestrated wordings in the 23rd Congress
Resolution Statement: “2.171 6)
The Party will cooperate with secular opposition parties in Parliament on
agreed issues. Outside Parliament, the Party will work for the broadest
mobilisation of all secular forces against the communal agenda. The Party and
the Left will independently and unitedly with other democratic forces, on an
issue to issue basis, fight the assaults of neo-liberalism, authoritarian
onslaughts against democracy, democratic rights, suppression of dissent by the
use of draconian laws.
9) The Party must work in a sustained manner
to rally all Left and democratic forces including mass organisations and social
movements. The Left and democratic platform should conduct joint
struggles and movements highlighting the Left and Democratic Programme as
alternative policies.
10) As
and when elections take place appropriate electoral tactics to maximise the
pooling of anti-BJP votes will be adopted based on the above political line”. Such a political line is
in sharp contradiction with the party’s pledge for independent assertion (stated
earlier). Thus, whatever wordings are used, the overall stand on the
question of maneuvering with the Right remains unchanged!
The 22nd Central
Committee analysis of the 2021 legislative assembly elections bore the
following words in relation to the question of Identity Politics: Review of
Assembly Elections, 2021: “The influence of
identity politics was underestimated leading to our failure to address these
issues in a proper manner. Amongst the three issues the Sachar Committee
identified regarding the status and welfare of the minorities – security;
equity; identity – our focus was primarily on the first. Even under the Left
Front government in the later years the Party had assessed that over emphasis
only on the security issue did not meet the aspirations of the minorities.
Thanks to the Left Front government, the near four decades of secular harmony
without any communal clash or incident was accepted as a ‘given’ by the
minorities. Their urge for improved livelihood, employment, etc. largely
remained unaddressed. This needs to be corrected and a balanced approach should
be worked out. Along with the issue of security, the issues of identity
and equity should be taken up as part of class politics and struggles, guarding
against falling into the trap of identity politics, dominating over class
issues, thus negating classes and class struggle”. The 23rd Congress
Resolution stated the following on the minority question: “2.144
There are Muslim extremist and fundamentalist organisations like the
Jamaat-e-Islami and Popular Front of India and their political fronts which are
trying to utilize the alienation and insecurities among the minority community
in the background of vicious targeting by the Hindutva forces. However, their
activities only help the Hindutva communal forces. It is of utmost
importance that the democratic and secular forces firmly defend the rights of
minorities and rally them to the secular platform”. However, both
analyses have failed to address the concrete party stand on parties like ISF,
especially when such parties exhibit a leadership anomaly between the communal
centre (here, led by Abbas Siddiqui) and the pacifist centre (here, led by
Nawsad Siddiqui).
The 2015 Kolkata Plenum had
faced tremendous criticism from the revolutionary cadres for its disregard of
the historic ‘Perspective Tactical Line’ and the implementation of ‘booth
committees’ with the dilution of independent character of the mass
organizations in the quest towards a ‘revolutionary party with a mass line’,
aptly suited to meet corporate media and bourgeois electoral demands. However,
the 23rd Congress Resolution has upheld the
Kolkata Plenum by stating, “2.167 f) The decisions
of the Kolkata Plenum on Organisation must be urgently implemented in right
earnest. Party organisations must be streamlined on the basis of the Plenum
guidelines”.
To add to the ongoing
revolutionary dilemma, the 22nd Central Committee
analysis of the 2021 legislative assembly elections stated, “We continued to campaign on the presumption that the
Left Front government with its land reforms and other pro-people policies could
gather the support of the minorities, Dalits, adivasis and other marginalised
sections. The slogan of land as our basis and industrialisation as our
future given at the time of the Nandigram developments continued to be used
even in this election campaign. In the current situation this slogan was seen
by the people as a continuation of land acquisition policy reviving memories of
that period which had alienated rural people from the Left Front”. While such
an observation is worth appraisal, some of the young representatives of the 23rd Congress and their followers, the proponents of pro-Buddhadeb industrialization policy, from the student and
youth organizations, have continued with their Singur rhetoric in local rallies.
The Left Congresses and
Conferences of 2022 are proving to be mere meetings to quell party squabbles
and enforce a burdened unity while retaining anti-people political positions,
however ill results they have garnered in the recent past. To support such a
strong statement, we must add that Dipankar Bhattacharya’s 45mins speech at the
recent West Bengal State Conference of CPI(ML)-Liberation had lines against
Mamata Banerjee barely for just 1 min. Furthermore, the CPI welcome
speech for the 23rd Party Congress of the CPI(M) had
the following lines: “We
must not forget that the Left in co-operation with other secular, democratic
and regional parties is equipped to play that role and as such, it is our
historic responsibility”.
RIP Independent Left Assertion!
References:
1. https://cpim.org/documents/22nd-congress-political-resolution
2. https://cpim.org/documents/review-assembly-elections-0
3. https://cpim.org/sites/default/files/documents/greetings_from_left_parties.pdf
4. https://cpim.org/documents/23rd-congress-political-resolution
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