Formation of Communist Party of India
“ Without a revolutionary party there can be no revolution ”. In India today there exists no such unified genuine revolutionary communist party . It is hard and painful reality that in spite of the formation of communist groups and the communist party or the communist movement in earlier days almost covered the period of 100 years or more , we failed to bring the final victory and the completion of task of social change . This needs serious analysis and discussion and adopt a correct Marxist-Leninist approach towards the process of building up such a communist party which is capable to lead the class struggle towards the final victory .
W hat is genuine unified revolutionary communist party ? The communist party is the highest form of organisation of the proletariat . It is the advanced detachment of the working class . It is a well disciplined organisation , based on scientific understanding of reality , based on democratic centralism , armed with Marxist-Leninist theory , tested in the practice of concrete struggle , using method of criticism and selfcriticism and lastly integrated with the masses of the people .
Why is it that in India such a party has not been built ? A genuine unified communist party could not be built in India because instead of taking inspiration from the historic struggles of the Indian working class and the workers of the world , leadership of the communist movement remained petty-bourgeois , in class origin and on class interest . It lacked firm proletarian conviction and faith in the people , as a result it fails to declass itself , to become integrated with the masses and to build up a genuine proletarian leadership . They could not correctly analyse the concrete situation in India , and this failed to lead the people to ultimate victory , falling December-2024 inevitably into morass of either left or right deviation .
It is a fact that in India the idea of communism developed under the impact of great October Revolution . After October Revolution contact between various centres of Indian revolutionaries in exile and Soviet Union were established in 1918 . This paved the way for the dissemination of Marxist ideology among the national revolutionaries in the early period . Indian revolutionaries who visited Russia between 1918 to 1922 were deeply impressed by their meetings with Lenin and other Soviet leaders and their observation in Moscow , Petrograd , Tashkent and Baku . Among them Maulana Barkatullah has written a book in Persian called “ Bolshevism and the Islamic Nations ”. This book was translated into different Asian languages . This book played an important role in India . Inspired by this book about 200 Muhajirs crossed at soviet border in 1920 . In the latter period some of them had come back to India and 30 of them stayed in Tashkent who found Tashkent branch of Indian Revolutionary Association . MPT Acharya had represented this association in the second congress of C . I . in 1920 . At the same time , in Baku a group was formed and published a fortnightly called Azad Hindustan Akhbar . The representation from this organisation also took part in the Congress of Peoples of East in 1920 .
MN Roy , while in exile played important role in spreading the ideas for Marxism . He joined the communist party of Mexico and had come to Moscow in 1920 as a delegate to the congress of CI and he was elected as member of the executive committee of CI .
On October 17 th , 1920 , CPI was formed in Tashkent with 10 members . First secretary was Mohammed
Subodh Mitra
Shafiq . During this period communist group came in to existence in Bombay under the leadership of SA Dange , SV Ghate , and RS Nimbkar . At the same period some more groups were formed under the leadership of Shaukat Usmani in Banaras and under the leadership of Muzaffar Ahmad , Singaravelu Chettiar came in to existence in Calcutta and Madras respectively .
In early period several such attempts were made to unite communist groups under a single communist party . But all attempts were failed and finally under the initiative of CPC and German Communist Party and Communist Party of Great Britian ( CPGB ) wrote an open letter to all Indian communist groups and the letter was published in the INPRECOR , the organ of communist international on May 12 th , 1932 . The letter observed that the general situation of the Communist International is not satisfactory . But on the outside there is tremendous development of the working class and peasant movement which is unprecedented in the past . On the other hand , communist party is consisted of small number of weak parties and isolated from the masses . The letter further observed that instead of struggle for united all India communist party , localism provincialism self-isolation from masses is mainly existing .
Though the letter was written by three parties , all the suggestions made by it had the approval of CI . Finally in Dec 1933 , an all-India congress was held in Calcutta and a provisional central committee was formed and also adopted a political thesis and a Draft constitution . Subsequently these were published in the organisation of communist organ INPRECOR .
In real sense of the term the CPI came into being with proper centre ,
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