Bhopal Conference Document

The Political Organisational Report
[Extracts from POR of the Central Committee Adopted by the All India Special Conference from November 7 to 12, 2009]

On building CPI(ML) in to Bolshevik Style Communist Party with Countrywide Influence
Struggle Against Neo-Revisionism
1       The inner-party struggle against the Dangeist leadership in the undivided CPI which was trying to degenerate the Party into an appendage of the Congress Party, the main political representative of big bourgeois-big landlord classes serving imperialism, in line with the class collaborationist Krushchovite clique which had usurped the leadership of the Party and the state in the Soviet Union, went on intensifying leading to the split in 1964 and the formation of the CPI(M). Though the Seventh Congress of the CPI(M) in November 1964 adopted a Party Programme based on the programmatic approach and the policy statement put forward in 1951, it refused to recognise the collaboration of the big bourgeoisie with imperialism as its main character, to uphold the basic positions of the Proposal Concerning the General Line of ICM  put forward by the CPC in 1963 against the revisionist line of “peaceful co-existence and peaceful competition with imperialism and peaceful transition to socialism” of the Soviet party leadership, and to develop a proletarian revolutionary line for advancing the People’s Democratic Revolution according to the concrete conditions in India. The CPI(M) leadership did not try to settle accounts with the rightist tendencies including trade unionism, parliamentarism and reformist positions which were gaining strength in spite of the split with the Dangesit line. As a result, by degenerating to neo-revisionist positions, in 1967 general elections the CPI(M) leadership formed united fronts with the renegade CPI and reactionary and communal forces in the name of defeating the Congress. Following the elections, it formed ministries in West Bengal and Kerala joining with these forces, deviating to the line of parliamentarism and class collaboration. These CPI(M)-led governments in West Bengal and Kerala refused to implement even the land reforms called for by the All India Kisan Sabha under its leadership.
2       The Communist Revolutionaries (CRs) within the CPI(M) had started an inner-party struggle against the rightist line of the leadership immediately after the Seventh Congress focussing on the theory and practice of the People’s Democratic Revolution in the concrete conditions of India and upholding the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM  put forward by the CPC. The formation of the opportunist united front in 1967 elections followed by the formation of the coalition ministries confirmed their criticism that the leadership has deviated to right opportunist line. The inner-party struggle developed focussing on the approach to be taken towards agrarian revolution based on the land to the tiller slogan and other vital issues. Demanding confiscation and distribution of the surplus land based on ceiling laws, and revolutionalisation of the land reforms with the land to the tiller approach, the CRs within the CPI(M) led the Naxalbari uprising in North Bengal in May 1967, which was brutally suppressed by the CPI(M)-led government with the assistance of the Indira Gandhi government at the centre.
3.      As the Approach Paper of the CC adopted by the 2007 Plenum of the CPI(ML) evaluated: “After Telengana, the Naxalbari uprising and Srikakulam movement provided an excellent opportunity to break free from the chains of revisionism and neo-revisionism which dominated the communist movement at that time and to take steps to build a genuine party of the proletariat guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.” The CRs   within the CPI(M) organised with this purpose, first the Naxalbari Krishak Sangram Sahayak Committee, soon to be followed by the All India Coordination Committee of CRs within the CPI(M). But as the 1968 Burdwan Plenum exposed the Krushchovite line of the CPI(M) leadership, the CRs decided to revolt against the leadership, to come out of the CPI(M), and to form the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries .
Towards Formation of CPI(ML)
4       Following the call of the AICCCR to create Naxalbaris all over the country, revolutionary agrarian movements started developing in Srikakulam in AP, Debra-Gobiballabhpur in West Bengal, Mushahari in Bihar, Terai region of UP and elsewhere. Millions of youth and students were inspired and joined the revolutionary upheaval. But the leadership of the AICCCR failed to analyse the concrete conditions and class relations in India two decades after the transfer of power and to apply Marxist-Leninist theory in the conditions when the imperialist camp led by US imperialism had resorted to neo-colonial forms of plunder in the decades following World War II. Though it uncompromisingly opposed Soviet revisionism, denounced the transformation of socialist Soviet Union into a social imperialist power, upheld the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM put forward by the CPC, propagated the great Cultural Revolution in China and resorted to intensification of ideological struggle against revisionist CPI and neo-revisionist CPI(M), due to the above mentioned weakness in analysing the concrete objective conditions in India and due to the influence of the sectarian line dominating the 1969 Ninth Congress of the CPC, which it was upholding as the international authority, which had in effect upheld the Lin Piaoist line deviating from Mao’s contribution, it soon deviated to sectarian positions. It scuttled the possibilities for developing the AICCCR as the platform of all genuine Communist Revolutionaries coming from different parts of the country.
5       Still the formation of the CPI(ML) as the vanguard of the Indian proletariat on 22nd April 1969 was a timely and bold step in the objective situation existing then for the formation of a genuine communist party based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. It was a historic step in continuation to the revolutionary heritage of the Indian communist movement from 1920s, for uniting all the CR forces active in the country, for leading the people’s struggles surging forward in different parts of the country. But as the ‘left’ sectarian line manifested in the adoption of the line of individual annihilation against mass line and people’s revolutionary struggles and in adopting the guerrilla warfare as the only form of struggle rejecting all class/mass organisations and other forms of struggles, and squad as the only form of organisation, the enthusiasm created by the formation of the party started waning fast. As a result of this and due to the intensifying attack by the state machinery and the comprador forces, by 1971-72 the revolutionary move-ment suffered severe setbacks and CPI(ML) splintered in to a number of groups. Though the CR forces who were not part of the CPI(ML) got organised in to different groups and were opposing the ‘left’ sectarian line of the CPI(ML), they also failed in the concrete analysis of Indian situation and in developing the strategic approach and tactical line for Indian revolution. As a result, they also soon got weakened and splintered continuously.
Marxist-Leninist Movement after Setback
6       By 1973 the CPI(ML) had splitted mainly into three trends: Firstly, those sections who had rejected the line of annihilation and Charu Majumdar’s leadership totally and opted for mass line. But in spite of rejecting the sectarian line they could not analyse the reasons for its emergence and domination, they could not overcome the weakness in analysing the objective conditions in the country and in developing the revolutionary mass line to carry forward the democratic revolution. Incapable of any creative initiative, in the name of fighting ‘left’ sectarian line, these sections were deviating to just opposite positions, to right sectarian positions. Secondly, those sections, mainly in West Bengal, who rejected the 10th Congress positions of the CPC and were upholding the Lin Biaoist positions which had already done immense damage to the communist movement both in China and internationally. Thirdly, those sections who were still upholding ‘com. Charu Majumdar’s revolutionary line’, who had taken up in their own way the question of rectification as pointed out in the last article of CM, “People’s Interest is Party’s Interest”. In spite of these divisions, when the bourgeois democratic movement erupted under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan against Indira Gandhi rule and later when internal emergency was declared by her government, the CPI(ML) as well as non-CPI(ML) groups played active role in the struggle against the autocratic Indira Gandhi regime.
Problems of Re-organisation of CPI(ML)
7       In 1977 elections the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi was defeated. Emergency was withdrawn. Large number of the CR forces incarcerated for long was released. Meanwhile, in 1976 Mao Tsetung passed away. Immediately after it the capitalist roaders in CPC usurped power of both the Party and of the state and put forward the ‘Theory of Three Worlds’ (TWT) as the General Line of the International Proletariat. Evaluation of the new political developments in India, and the developments in the ICM was a new challenge before the CR forces. According to the way they responded to these developments, the old polarisation gave way to new polarisations among the CR forces. But whatever may be the polarisation of these sections almost all of them were still adhering to the ‘Chinese path’ mechanically, analysing India as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country and protracted people’s war as the path of revolution. Though most of them had accepted the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM of 1963, and the Cultural Revolution, they mechanically upheld the Dengists who had usurped power and their TWT many years. They failed to grasp the changes taking place in the agrarian sector following the ceiling laws imposed from above and the green revolution, to understand the class character of the agrarian struggles coming up from the post-emergency years and the neo-colonial form of plunder intensifying in the country. Though by 1982 many of these groups, except CPI(ML) Liberation and some other fringe groups, denounced the Dengist revisionists, they still clung to the class collaborationist Three World Theory. At the same time, some of these groups like CPI(ML) People’s War, CPI(ML) Party Unity and the MCC were mechanically pursuing the line of annihilation and guerrilla struggle as the only form of struggle with some technical improvements. The Lin Biaoists, after another short spurt in mid-1980s, almost vanished and got reduced as a fascination of certain petti-bourgeois elements in West Bengal.
8       The 1970s and 1980s was a crucial period both internationally and nationally. At international level the imperialist camp led by US imperialism was facing yet another upswing of its general crisis. Abandoning the Keynesian policies adopted during post-World War II years, under the newly intensifying crisis manifested as stagflation, it adopted the neo-liberal policies. The international communist movement suffered further reverses and setbacks, with the degeneration of China and Albania also to capitalist path and almost all communist parties formed during Comintern (Communist International) period to social democratic line. The historic victories of the Indo-Chinese peoples in the mid-1970s in throwing out the US imperialists and their lackeys could not make any qualitative change. Within the country the comprador ruling system was in a severe economic crisis creating upheavals in the socio-political spheres. While the CPI, CPI(M) like forces had degenerated to social democratic positions, the CR forces were also facing serious challenges with some groups deviating to rightist path and some others to sectarian, anarchist line.
CRC, CPI(ML) Adopts Neo-colonial Approach
9.      At this time, in continuation of its denunciation of the capitalist roaders who usurped power in China, the metaphysical line of the Albanian revisionists and class collaborationist Three World Theory, upholding the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM put forward by the CPC in 1963 and the nine comments published by it as part the Great Debate, the CRC, CPI(ML) initiated an analysis of the concrete conditions in the country during the post-World War II decades, especially following the 1947 transfer of power as part of the ‘de-colonisation’ resorted to by the imperialist camp led by US imperialism for its neo-colonial offensive. In its First All India Conference in 1982 it tried to develop the Marxist-Leninist understanding about the replacement of colonial form of occupation and plunder by the neo-colonial form of exploitation during the post- World War II decades by the imperialist camp led by US imperialism. In continuation to this, through concrete studies of Indian situation it pointed out that while feudal remnants were continuing to exist in some regions, under imperialist promoted ceiling laws and green revolution the feudal landlords were being replaced by the agricultural bourgeoisie and rich peasants, a kulak class as they were called. It was these classes who were mainly leading the agrarian struggles for remunerative prices of agricultural outputs and subsidies for inputs. It manifested the contradiction among the ruling classes contrary to the views of some of the CR groups who were mechanically supporting the movement of the kulaks.
10.    This neo-colonial understanding put forward by the CRC, CPI(ML) was a major breakthrough in the direction of concrete analysis of contemporary Indian conditions in continuation to the positions taken by the CR forces internationally and in India during 1960s and early 1970s. It was an attempt to study and apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to develop the theory and practice of People’s Democratic or New Democratic Revolution in India in the concrete conditions following the transfer of power in 1947. Based on this understanding it tried to analyse the reasons for the setbacks suffered by the ICM from 1950s and initiative was taken to bring the Marxist-Leninist forces at international level on a common platform for mobilising the struggle against imperialism and world reaction. Though these were significant steps, as a result of the emergence of a petti-bourgeois, chauvinist line within the leading committee, the efforts to carry forward this line was seriously affected. The CRC, CPI(ML) faced a serious inner party struggle in 1987 in the course of which this alien trend led by K. Venu was defeated.
Towards Formation of CPI(ML) Red Flag
11.    Very soon in a Special Conference in 1987 the vast majority of the comrades of the CRC, CPI(ML) were reorganised as CPI(ML) Red Flag and the efforts to re-organise the Marxist-Leninist movement in the country were carried forward with a new vigour. In continuation to the neo-colonial understanding, in 1983 the line of individual annihilation, the line of guerrilla struggle as the only form of struggle and the Concept of Charu Majumdar’s Revolutionary Line were rejected, and a political organisational resolution was adopted to reorganise the party on Bolshevik lines surrounded by class/mass organisations. The Second All India Conference of the CPI(ML) Red Flag in 1991 and the All India Plenum of 1993 further developed this ideological, political and organisa-tional understanding. The Third All India Conference in 1994 put forward the stand that while intensifying the efforts to develop the ideological-political line based on the neo-colonial understanding and to organisationally develop the Party, efforts should be made to build a platform of Marxist-Leninist organisations at all India level to wage country-wide struggles on common issues against the ruling system. Based on this understanding while the Party organised a country-wide movement against imperialist globalisation imposed by the Congress government in 1991, against signing of the GATT Treaty in 1994 and against joining the WTO in 1995, the joint forum of six organisations formed in 1995 took up many country-wide campaigns.
12.    The Fourth All India Conference in 1997 further developing the neo-colonial understanding adopted the international document: “On International Developments and Tasks of the Marxist-Leninist Forces”. Based on this, the party joined hands with like minded forces at international level to carry forward the task of building a platform of the Marxist-Leninist forces. In the Fifth All India Conference, the Party adopted a new party programme analysing India as a neo-colonial country. These were significant steps forward. Now the urgent task before the organisation was to develop a Path of Revolution document based on the programmatic approach adopted. As a part of this effort an approach paper on developing the working class movement and agrarian revolution based on the neo-colonial conditions in India was being contemplated. Unity talks with two of the organisations — CPI(ML) Unity Initiative and COI(ML) — in the Six Party Forum was also started.
Inner-party Struggle Within CPI(ML) Red Flag
13.    In the course of these developments a serious struggle had to be waged against the sectarian line pursued by com. S.A. Rawoof. As he was not prepared to rectify his line, insisted on pursuing annihilation line and indulged in anti-party activities he had to be expelled in 1998. In 1999 the Enlarged Meeting of the Central Committee decided to utilise the parliamentary form of struggle as part of utilising all forms of struggles to develop class struggle. Following the Fifth All India Conference, a serious right deviation came out in the open involving the leadership and majority of the state committee members in Kerala. It was a right opportunist and liquidationist line which advocated for supporting the CPI(M) leadership in essence, though it tried to cover its real intensions in the name of opposing the taking up of the agrarian revolutionary movement, in the name of opposing the unity efforts etc. This liquidationist line was defeated in the course of an uncompromising struggle mobilising vast majority of the party members in the state behind the Central Committee. The Sixth All India Conference in December 2003 marked the successful culmination of the this struggle.
14.    The victory over the liquidationist line led to all round development of activities in different fields following the Sixth All India Conference. Attacking the World Social Forum meet at Mumbai in January 2004 as an international carnival of the NGOs, the party organised an international conference of Marxist-Leninist parties with the slogan: Against Imperialism, Socialism is the Only Alternative condemning the WSF slogan: There are Many Alternatives. It was a major ideological struggle against the NGOs and their counter-revolutionary positions. The position paper put forward by the Central Committee calling on the state committees to make analysis of the concrete situation and launch land struggles with land to the tiller slogan created enthusiasm in the organisation. The SCs took up the call vigorously and land struggles and campaigns with land to the tiller slogan were organised in a number of states.
Unity Talks and Emergence of the Untied CPI(ML)
15.    Meanwhile taking the unity talks with the CPI(ML) Unity Initiative and COI(ML) a step forward a Co-ordination Committee of three organisations was formed. A joint campaign for the 2004 Lok Sabha elections was organised. Even an attempt was made to form a joint forum of like minded organisations to contest the elections on common agreed slogans. The Co-ordination Committee successfully completed the drafting of four documents: Outline Party Programme, Party Constitution, Political Resolution and Unity Resolution. While drafting these documents, even after compromises made by the both sides in the interest of unity, it was found that the differences noted on the following points from the beginning of the unity talks still persisted: On the character of the Indian state, on the Principal Contradiction, on the Path of Revolution and on evaluating the Party history between 1967 and 1972.
16.    Two options were there: either to continue as the co-ordination committee till the differences are resolved, or to make a bold experiment of uniting with these differences by chalking out methods to resolve them. It was unanimously decided that in the present situation when the unity of the CR organisations was becoming an almost difficult task and when most of the unity efforts so far have failed, it is better to make the bold experiment of uniting with differences and trying to resolve them through the process of unity and struggle in a single organisation while adhering to the organisational steps agreed upon to resolve them. The experience of the untied organisation for four years from January 2005 Vijayawada Unity Conference has proved that this unity did create lot of enthusiasm among the CR forces and the united organisation could make significant development during this period.
17.    What was the condition of the various pseudo left and left forces in the country at the time of Vijayawada Unity Conference? On the one hand the CPI(M)-led Left Front was propping up the Congress-led UPA government which was intensifying the neo-liberal economic policies and signing agreements strengthening strategic subservience to US imperialism, exposing its total degeneration to ruling class policies under socialist façade. The CPI(ML) Liberation was deviating fast to right opportunist positions. Almost all the fringe groups who had interpreted the ‘de-colonisation’ policies of imperialism led by US imperialism after World War II as completion of democratic revolution in these countries and analysed India as a capitalist country in the stage of socialist revolution had degenerated to reformism and NGO ideology. Organisations like CPI(ML) New Democracy advocating protracted people’s war based on ‘resistance line’ was finding it difficult to develop neither the ‘resistance struggle’ nor the mass line, reducing themselves to vacillating between sectarian positions and rightist deviation. On the other hand, the formation of CPI(Maoist) uniting CPI(ML) People’s War with CPI(ML) Party Unity and then with the MCC had further reduced it to mere squad actions, strengthening its anarchist line. As a result, none of these organisations were in a position to launch any countrywide mass movements and upsurges against the central and state governments representing the comprador bureaucratic bourgeois-landlord classes and serving imperialism, especially US imperialism. In this context the Vijayawada Unity Conference leading to the formation of the united CPI(ML) was a significant step forward.
18     The Political Resolution and the Unity Resolution adopted by the Vijayawada Unity Conference had put forward concrete proposals to carry forward the unity process to bring together all genuine Marxist-Leninist forces within the CPI(ML), to develop fraternal relations with Marxist-Leninist parties at international level, to develop party organisation and take up political campaigns and mass movements at state level and all India level, to unite all the trade unions centres/trade unions under the leadership of the merged organisations into a single centre to lead countrywide working class struggles, to unite the agricultural workers-poor and landless peasant organisations to intensify the agrarian revolutionary movement based on land to the tiller slogan, to unite the women’s, youth and student organisations at all India level etc. The Political Resolution had also called for intensifying ideological-political campaign uncompromisingly against right opportunist and sectarian/ anarchist tendencies.
19.    Following the Vijayawada Unity Conference the Delhi Party Centre was further activated, the central organs of the party were regularly published giving Marxist-Leninist orientation to the comrades. Through uncompromising ideological-political struggles many cadres of CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation, the Maoist trend etc. were won over strengthening and expanding the party to new areas. The working class struggles and land struggles with land to the tiller slogan were intensified in some states. The youth, student, women organisations were developed in more areas. A massive parliament march was organised in November 2007 against the anti-people and anti-national policies of the UPA government. At a time when the CPI(M)-led LF was shamelessly propping up the reactionary central government and the state governments led by it were pursuing the very same neo-liberal policies resulting in Singur and Nandigram like people’s struggles against them, when the anarchist actions of CPI(Maoist) was isolating the movement from the general masses and vulgarising the image of Marxist ideology, and when most of the other CR organisations were getting weakened, the Vijayawada Unity Conference and the activities under the leadership of CPI(ML) had created positive atmosphere.
Differences Sharpening Within CPI(ML)
20     But the CPI(ML) could do a great lot more than this. Immediately after the Unity Conference the ideological-political-organisational differences between former CPI(ML) Red Flag and the former CPI(ML) 2003 formed in 2003 with the unity of CPI(ML) Unity Initiative and COI(ML) started coming to the forefront as the latter refused to carry forward the activities based on the letter and spirit of the Political Resolution and Unity Resolution. For example when the question of pursuing unity talks with other CR organisations was taken up, the CCMs of CPI(ML) of 2003 started looking upon all initiatives taken in this respect with suspicion and blocked it. When the question of developing fraternal relations with the Marxist-Leninist parties at international level, attending international conferences and the party congress of fraternal parties came up, it was prevented by the leading comrades of former CPI(ML) of 2003.
21.    At the time of unity, CPI(ML) Red Flag had TUCI as its TU centre whose activities had spread to a number of states. Trade union centres or trade unions under the leadership of former state committees of CPI(ML) of 2003 were existing in West Bengal, Bihar-Jharkhand, AP, etc. When the question of uniting them in to a single centre or federation was taken up, it was opposed by them and numerous obstacles were created for developing the working class movement at all India level as well as for politicising them with the orientation of making the working class capable of leading the democratic revolution. Though the leadership of former CPI(ML) of 2003 was paying lip sympathy to the land to the tiller slogan, they had not tried to put it into practice. After the unity they blocked the formation of a revolutionary peasant organisation at all India level as well as created obstacles to developing the land struggle going on in a number of states. Similarly, they blocked all efforts to form all India organisations of youth, students and women also.
22.    When the question of launching all India political campaigns and a parliament march was taken up, once again they stubbornly resisted, and when finally a parliament march was decided for November 2007, their participation was namesake. On running the Party Centre at Delhi, on publishing the English and Hindi central organs, on reacting to important national and international developments through press statements, demonstrations, etc. also their participation was negligible. Even when the question of actively utilising elections to five state assemblies in October-November 2008 for political campaign of the party was taken up in the CC meeting, their response was almost similar to boycott of elections.
23.    It was being repeatedly proved that the leadership of former CPI(ML) of 2003 were victims of the dilemma of their own creation. In spite of all their animosity to Charu Majumdar, they were fervently sticking mechanically to the ‘Chinese path’ of ‘protracted people’s war’ and ‘area-wise seizure of political power’, products of their ‘semi-colonial, semi-feudal’ approach. In spite of all their talks about vast differences between pre-revolutionary China and present India, they could not put forward in a Marxist-Leninist way a path of revolution based on concrete analysis of the changes that have taken place. In spite of all their talks about utilising all forms of struggles and linking open and secret and legal and illegal forms, they had no vision of either mass line of a party surrounded by class/mass organisations, or of developing armed struggle. It was eclecticism and a rightist sectarian approach which was dominating them. This had led most of the leadership to inactivity, pessimism and petti-bourgeois approaches. Even com. Kanu Sanyal elected as general secretary was sticking to his decades long practice of leading a small tea-garden workers union from his village, neglecting the task of providing ideological-political-organisational leadership to the Party at all India level. All most all these limitations and weakness of the CPI(ML) of 2003 were not known to the CPI(ML) Red Flag leadership when the unity was forged enthusiastically. It should be seen self critically.
24.    In spite of all these problems creating acute differences for taking up the responsibilities of leading the organisation forward utilising the favourable objective conditions, the former CPI(ML) Red Flag comrades put up with them in a healthy manner shouldering the additional burdens to lead the party organisationally and to lead numerous struggles. It was an approach of principled compromise in order to win over the other section to the path of revolutionary struggle. But to pursue this path to save the unity faced a serious challenge when the Plenum was organised in June 2007 to resolve the differences on analysing the Party History during 1967 to 1972.
25.    It should not have been a very difficult task to hold the plenum in healthy way as both sections had basic unity on the point that the CR movement suffered severe setback by 1972 due the sectarian line pursued under the leadership of com. Charu Majumdar including the ‘line of individual annihilation’. But grave difficulties were faced to arrive at a common approach paper on this question as the leadership of former CPI(ML) of 2003 refused to accept the role of the sectarian influence dominating the CPC, which was upheld by all sections of the CRs in India as the international authority, for the sectarian deviation in the CPI(ML) and put the whole blame on CM for it, even calling him a terrorist. Besides, the organisational principles were violated during the whole Plenum process in a most unhealthy way imposing their dogmatic views. Only because of the exemplary sense of discipline of the delegates and because of the compromises made by the former CPI(ML) Red Flag CCMs to save the unity, a split was avoided and a common approach paper was adopted leaving remaining contentious issues to a History Commission.
Initiative for All India Special Conference
26.    The Unity Resolution had called for an All India Special Conference to be held within two years to resolve the differences on (1) character of Indian state and (2) principal contradiction and to chart the path of revolution document. As the Plenum itself could be held only in June 2007, it was decided to start the conference process soon to complete it by November 2009. The CC formed a sub-committee to draft documents in August 2007. But due to the negative approach of the sub-committee members of former CPI(ML) of 2003, the process went on getting delayed. In spite of the repeated decision of the CC in April 2008, only one set of drafts representing former CPI(ML) Red Flag’s views was presented by stipulated time. Ultimately only in December 2008 CC meeting drafts of comrades Subodh Mitra and Viswam were presented.
27.    It was absolutely clear from these drafts that there is no possibility for presenting a joint document. So the CCMs of former CPI(ML) Red Flag took the stand that let all these drafts be published in The Guide, start inner-party discussion and start the conference process in the course of which possibility for joint drafts can be sought. But these proposals based on former CC decision were violently opposed by the CCMs of former CPI(ML) of 2003. They took the stand that as these drafts went against the line of the Unity Conference according to their view, they cannot be published and demanded redrafting of them. In spite of five days of discussion, no agreement could be arrived at and another CC meeting was called in January 2009. In the course of the discussion they had also tried to divert it from the cardinal question of coming to an understanding on the programmatic approach and path of revolution by raising organisational allegations vituperating the atmosphere.
28.    It was in this situation eight state committees with more than two-thirds of the party membership sent letters to the General Secretary with copy to all the CCMs that all the three sets of drafts should be published, the inner-party discussion should be started in The Guide, and the Conference process to be started after the Lok Sabha elections. Comrade Kanu Sanyal did not take any initiative to solve the problem and when the CC members assembled for the 21st January meeting in a fax message he stated that as any compromise is not possible on the drafts, it is better to part ways peacefully. Before the CC there were only two possibilities. Either to publish all the drafts and start inner-party discussion in the pages of The Guide to be followed by the Conference process after the Lok Sabha elections, or part peacefully. But the CCMs of former CPI(ML) of 2003 not only opposed the first part violently, but also tried to raise unfounded organisational allegations in order to prevent a healthy parting of ways to the former co-ordination committee level as suggested by the CCMs of former CPI(ML) Red Flag.
29.    It was in this situation, in order to save the Party, all the CCMs of former CPI(ML) Red Flag met and decided to save the unity and to function as the CC of the CPI(ML). It issued a Party Letter to all the state committees appealing to them to unite under this CC of the CPI(ML) and to carry forward the Lok Sabha election campaign vigorously and to carry forward the conference process soon after. It also decided to publish a theoretical journal and publish all the three sets of drafts in it. It was published in February 2009 itself.
30.    All the party committees of former CPI(ML) Red Flag are aware of the initiative taken by us during the last three decades continuously for unity of the Marxist-Leninist forces and to the strenuous efforts made by the organisation to realise the materialisation of the Vijayawada Unity Conference, to develop the ideological-political line of the party and to unite all genuine Marxist-Leninists into a single party. In spite of many negative factors, it was because of the initiative and necessary compromises from our part the unity was realised. It was again because of the very same approach the unity could be maintained in spite of numerous severe problems that arose continuously. Our effort was to over come the differences through a process of unity and struggle remaining within the same organisation. When it was found by the other side that they are getting more and more alienated from their own cadres and that they are failing to put their own line in to practice, they sabotaged the Conference process which led to the separation. The dogmatic and anti-unity approach of the leadership of the former CPI(ML) of 2003 is entirely responsible for it.
Conclusion
1.      After the CPI(ML) started splintering from 1971, during the course of almost last four decades of our unity and party building process the revolutionary movement has gained rich experiences. One of the basic features of the reorganizational efforts right from the time the CRC, CPI(ML) was formed in 1979 was the primary importance given to ideological-political line in rebuilding the Party. While taking up the challenging experiment of uniting with differences with the CPI(ML) of 2003 in 2005, in the Unity Resolution all the four major points of difference were well defined and inserted. And it was only when the democratic process of distributing the different documents, holding inner party discussion based on them and proceeding to hold the All India Special Conference was blocked by the CPI(ML) of 2003 contrary to the decisions of the Unity Conference, the unity was disrupted.  Based on these experiences, Party should firmly adhere to the Marxist-Leninist principle that ideological-political line determines everything, overcoming whatever weaknesses had surfaced in this respect in the past.
2.      The communist movement both at international and national level is at a critical juncture at present. In spite of the severe setbacks suffered by the movement a large number of organizations refuse to find out the ideological- political reasons for the setback. Most of them are satisfied with certain superficial changes made, afraid of analysing and taking lessons from the changes in the concrete conditions that have taken place and applying the Marxist-Leninist principles accordingly. As a result alien tendencies have gained dominance over them. A major section of them led by CPI(M) have degenerated to outright social democratic positions. In spite of waving the red flag and using the name ‘communist’ they have for all practical purposes become part of the ruling class politics.  On the other extreme, the CPI (Maoist) is sticking to dogmatic, anarchist line, pursuing the line of annihilation still, and helping the ruling system and all forces of reaction to defame, isolate and attack the Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. Besides a number of organisations, in spite of their claims about pursuing the mass line are the prisoners of concepts like ‘protracted people’s war’ and ‘area wise seizure of political power’ practiced by the CPC in the then concrete conditions of semi-colonial, semi-feudal China.  And the ‘socialist revolutionaries’ of various hues, even while continuously splintering and pushed to the fringe, refuse to see imperialism, especially US imperialism, increasingly penetrating its tentacles on our country. 
3.      In this situation, the most significant feature of our Party is that for the last three decades we have dared to initiate a discussion on the neo-colonial forms of plunder launched by the imperialist camp led by US imperialism from 1941 when US and British imperialist leaders under the initiative of US imperialism put forward the Atlantic Charter and later 1944 Brettenwood Agreement to re-chart the post World War II global scenario to combat the advance of the socialist camp and the national liberation movements and to find a way out of the inherent crisis the imperialist system was confronting. This challenge was subjected to discussions at various levels from that time onwards, even the democratic forces from Afro-Asian-Latin American countries. The post-Stalin leadership in Soviet Union refusing to recognise this neo-colonial offensive and failing to the combat it ideologically and politically degenerated as its apologists. Within the CPC the theoretical understanding on neo-colonialism and revolutionary approaches based on it could not be further developed due to intensification of the inner-party struggle and as post-Mao leadership also degenerating as apologists of neo–colonialism.  As a result, in the absence of ‘directives from the international authority’, as the social democrats degenerated to apologists of neo-colonialism, most of the Marxist-Leninist parties mechanically clung to the ‘semi-colonial’ analysis.
4.      In this situation it was a major challenge taken up by the CRC, CPI(ML) along with its struggle against the capitalist readers who had usurped  power in China soon after Mao’s death and their class collaborationist Theory of Three world’s. The neo-colonial understanding initially put forward in the early 1980s was further developed through the international document of 1997 and the Party Programme adopted in 2000 Fifth All India Conference. The settling of  accounts with the CPI(ML) of 2003 who tried to scuttle the democratic process of subjecting the two approaches based on neo-colonial and semi-colonial understanding for open discussion in the All India Special Conference has now provided the opportunity for uniting all the forces to launch an all out offensive for developing the ideological-political line based on the understanding about neo-colonialism and for building the Party and class /mass organizations at all India level.
5.      The discussion and adoption of the four basic documents on the International Situation and Our Tasks, the Characterization of the Indian State, the Principal Contradiction and the Path of Revolution, have provided the theoretical basis to carry forward this revolutionary task fighting all alien trends. In the course of the last four years significant advances in Party building were made which is reflected in this Conference. It has provided the momentum to unite all like minded forces, to win over the cadres from various other ‘Marxist’ forces who wants to join the revolutionary stream and to recruit cadres from the new generation in order to speed up the party building at all India level.
6.      While carrying this task forward continuously and tirelessly, the All India Special Conference has resolved to make conscious efforts to advance towards the 9th Party Congress to adopt the Party Programme based on the basic positions put forwards adopted by the Conference. Carry forward the Party building and building of  class/mass organizations at all India level, develop the working class struggles, agrarian revolutionary movement and revolutionary struggles in all other fields, launch all India movements focusing on various people’s issues so that this historic task of holding the Ninth Congress of the Party can be accomplished as early as possible in an atmosphere of all round revolutionary advances. Let us Dare to Think, Dare to Struggle, and Dare to Win for advancing towards People’s Democracy and socialism.

Long Live Marxism- Leninism – Mao Tsetung Thought
Long Live Proletarian Internationalism
Long Live CPI (ML)
Advance along the path of People’s Democratic Revolution as part of World Proletarian Socialist Revolution

CC, CPI(ML)

13-11-2009