November 16 - 30, December 1-15, 2006

"We don’t want VRS, we want work"! "Long live the unity of the Century Mill workers"! "United, workers will emerge victorious"! "An attack on one is an attack on all"! With such slogans, one contingent of workers came from their gate meeting in front of the Century Mills and another contingent of garment workers arrived from the Curry road area. Within minutes the Kamgar Kalyan Kendra of Worli was filled with more than 150 people.

The occasion for the gathering was the public meeting organized by the Communist Ghadar Party of India on the subject, "The Lessons of the Great October Revolution and the Road to Socialism in the 21st Century". The meeting lasted for more than two and a half hours and the participants attentively listened to the various speakers. Besides the speakers from the Communist Ghadar Party, representatives of Kamagar Ekta Chalwal, Socialist Unity Centre of India, Century Mill Union, Ladaku Mazdoor Union and others addressed the gathering.

A speaker from the Ghadar Party opened the meeting with a warm welcome and said that it was not possible in the capitalist system for the working class to emancipate themselves as the system was based on extraction of surplus value from the workers. This meant that of the workers' working day, the value produced in only a small fraction of the workday was used to pay for wages, while a bigger fraction of the value was appropriated by the owners of capital, which of course, is a reflection of the nature of the exploitative capitalist system. Talking about the history of the Indian capitalists, he pointed out that the Indian bourgeoisie grew up closely aligning with the colonial British rulers and right from the beginning they have regarded it essential to suppress the people in order to enrich themselves.

The main speaker of the Communist Ghadar Party started her speech by talking about the importance of the Great October Revolution. It was by clearing the fog of class collaboration created by various parties in Russia that the Bolshevik party was able to isolate the capitalist and imperialist powers at that time. Being a backward country, they mobilized the peasants for the revolution and built a broad political unity of the workers, peasants, soldiers and other toiling sections. Under the leadership of Lenin, the Russian communists displayed great wisdom, hard work, militancy and a spirit of sacrifice in ushering in the Great October Revolution.

Talking about the situation in India, she pointed out that Communist party was founded in India 80 years ago, yet revolution has not taken place. The reason for this has been the tendency of the communist party leadership to waste their time searching for a "progressive" section among the bourgeoisie. The result of this tendency has been that they have turned the working class to become the tail of the capitalist class. She said that this could not be called a mistake, for a mistake is one which is corrected. When communists came into power in Kerala, then the Nehru government dismissed their government for carrying out some reforms in the areas of education and agriculture. Rather than mobilizing people to fight this dictate of the ruling class, CPI gave up. Subsequently, it fully integrated itself into being a parliamentary party and has lost its class character.

After the split in the communist party, the CPI(M) has played an even more traitorous role. Not only did it lead to a split in the workers' unions, it actually gave information to the police and the state on the most militant party members in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand, the Maoists have rejected the lessons of the Great October Revolution by allowing several lines to co-exist in the Party. The results were there for every one to see; with communists fragmented, the working class has been left without the communist leadership. In such circumstances, the Communist Ghadar Party of India was founded 26 years ago. Our party may be small but the important thing is that it is faithful to Marxism Leninism and the Indian revolution and therefore will be successful in uniting the communist leadership of the working class. Today when most of the workers are under the sway of the CPI(M), it is the view of our party that unless the working class comes under the leadership of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party, the rule of the working class cannot be established.

One of the important lessons of the rise and fall of socialism in the Soviet Union is that a party must not come into power itself, but must work to enable the working class to come to power. There are already signs visible that the ebb of revolution that started after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 is turning into a tide. In India and outside, majority of the people are rising up against the capitalist-imperialist reforms. The political unity of the people is getting strengthened in struggle against the anti-social capitalist program of globalization through privatization and liberalisation. In different parts of the country, party is providing leadership to these struggles.

The party speaker highlighted another lesson of the Great October revolution that is important to our country. Soviet Union was a voluntary union of nations and nationalities. All nations in the Soviet Union had the right to self determination up to the point of secession. Because the nations were no longer exploited, the nations voluntarily stayed in the Union. Today because of the oppression of nations, Kashmiri and other nations in the North-east are waging a struggle to break free from the Indian Union. Indian state is using untold violence to suppress these nations and justifying such suppression in the name of “unity and integrity”. There is a great need for all communists and democratic forces to oppose such state terror.

The representative of the Kamgar Ekta Chalwal (KEC) talked about important lessons of the Great October revolution, like

1. The working class should not get entangled in the in-fighting of the ruling class but must focus on overthrowing the ruling class.
2. Working class must condemn national oppression and must recognize the rights of nations and nationalities.
3. The working class must recognize the right of tiller to the land and must forge a revolutionary united front with the peasantry.
4. The working class must support the formation of fighting organizations of oppressed people, so that such organizations could become the organs of state power much like the soviets.

He declared that KEC will soon hold a public meeting in support of the struggle of the Century mill workers. He called upon all workers, parties and organizations to participate in this public meeting.

The representative of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) congratulated the Ghadar Party for organizing this public meeting on such an important issue. In the context of the Great October Revolution, he pointed out that Lenin did not use Marxism as a formula but used it a guide to action for bringing about the revolution according to the concrete conditions. For example, in the changed situation after the February revolution in 1917, he reached the conclusion that capitalist development was incapable of even completing the democratic task and that these tasks can only be completed by rule of the workers under the leadership of the communists. Therefore, in his work “The April Thesis”, he gave the slogan “All power to the Soviets!”. Thus, an important lesson of the Great October Revolution was that the strategy and tactics must be worked out according to the concrete conditions in each country.

The leader of the Century Mill workers talked about the intense exploitation of the workers that is taking place everywhere. He said that under the pretext of creating employment, capitalists obtain a lot of subsidies and concessions from the government; then, “why does the government not pass a law that if a factory is closed then its land will be given to the workers?” he asked. If such a law existed, then no capitalist would even think of closing down his factory.

Commenting on the role of the parliamentary communists, he said that the parliamentary communists are acting the same way as Bhishma Pitamah did when Draupadi was being disrobed. One after another, attacks are taking place on the workers yet the 62 communists are mute spectators in the parliament. He demanded from the parliamentary communists that they must raise the demands of the toiling people and oppose the attacks taking place on them.

He concluded his speech by reciting four lines of the poet Dinkar –

Who are you seeking with your aarti?

In the temples, in the king’s court and in the cellars.

Gods are there on the roads, breaking stones,

Gods can be found in fields and barns.

The speaker from the Ladaku Mazdoor Union said that we are never taught in the history books in our schools that workers wrested political power and are actually capable of becoming the ruling class. The ruling class today does not want people to even entertain such ideas. He said that in this system, the union worker is reduced to running to the courts from one date to another, yet justice remains out of reach. This is not a problem of this or that factory alone, this is a problem for the whole working class. The main lesson to take from the Great October Revolution is that the working class must take the reins of political power in its own hands. He explained how the political and electoral processes in this system ensure that the people are deprived of political power and talked about the type of reforms necessary to empower the people. He also explained that when the political system changes many of the problems people face will be eliminated, as a majority of the people will have the money to spend of the items of consumption, spurring the economy and eliminating unemployment.

The meeting was concluded with the singing of the Internationale and shouting of militant slogans.