• Grand Celebration marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India.

• Speech delivered by Com. Lal Singh on the occassion of the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India
  Workers and Peasants want Revolution – Communists have to lead the way!

Grand Celebration marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India.

Lok Awaz is proud to announce the successful conclusion of the meeting to celebrate the 25 th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India. Comrade Lal Singh, General Secretary of the CGPI, in his keynote address, gave a rousing call to all communists to unite firmly and lead the working class to forge a fighting political front with the peasantry and all the discontented masses of people against the bourgeois offensive. The time is ripe, he pointed out, to build such a front for the democratic renewal of India, thereby beginning the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism.

As close to five hundred participants arrived from all over the country and abroad, braving the cold and the Delhi fog, they were warmly welcomed by a reception committee. They were then taken to see an exhibition on the history of the party entitled "Safarnama e Ghadar", which vividly depicted the various stages in the life and work of the party. Through the panels of the exhibition, comrades and supporters of the Party relived their past – their persistent struggle to create that force on Indian soil which would lead the workers, peasants, women and youth to victory in the revolution.

The celebration began with two columns of young boys and girls marching on to the stage from either side of the auditorium with red flags held proudly aloft, to the accompaniment of the song "Mehnatkash ko Laal Salaam, Mazdooron ko Lal Salaam, Shaheedon ko Lal Salaam, Ghadar Party Lal Salaam" (red salute to the toiling people, red salute to the working class, red salute to our martyrs, red salute to Ghadar Party). The entire audience rose to their feet, clapping their hands to the beat of the song.

The hall reverberated with thunderous applause as the spokesperson of the Party welcomed Comrade Lal Singh to the stage, who greeted each of the young red guards with great warmth, demonstrating the love of the Party and its leadership for the youth who are the future of the party and the country. A young woman comrade presented 25 red flags with the Party Symbol to Comrade Lal Singh.

The inspiring speech of Comrade Lal Singh was followed by interventions by a large number of comrades, old and young, from different regions of the country and different fronts of work of the party. This was followed by a multimedia presentation on the twenty five years of life and work of the Party. As Comrade Lal Singh gave his concluding remarks, he welcomed to the stage those comrades present in the gathering who had participated in the founding of the Party in 1980. The grand celebrations concluded with all those gathered standing tall with their fists clenched, singing the "The Internationale".

Speech delivered by Com. Lal Singh on the occassion of the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India

Workers and Peasants want Revolution – Communists have to lead the way!

Comrades and friends,

I am overjoyed to be here today amidst you all. I am filled with memories and feelings that I cannot describe in words.

To all of you who have assembled here, and to the many comrades who wanted to come but could not make it, I extend a very warm welcome from the Central Committee. You are the architects, masons and builders of this Party. Red Salute to all of you, dear comrades!

We are celebrating the 25 th anniversary of our Party at a time when the class struggle is becoming more intense, both within India and on the world scale. The key question is: Are the communist parties prepared to lead the working class and other discontented masses to open the path to revolution?

All over the world, the workers, oppressed peoples and enlightened persons are increasingly taking to the streets against the big imperialist powers and the agencies they dominate, such as the WTO, World Bank and IMF. They are vehemently rejecting the path of globalization for the benefit of capitalist monopolies to plunder the world’s resources. They are opposing the aggressive wars, sanctions and blockades by US imperialism against sovereign nations and peoples.

In Latin America, considered by the US imperialists as their own backyard, nations and peoples are uniting against the prescriptions of liberalisation and privatisation. The government and people of Cuba are continuing to persist with their independent path, braving the brutal economic blockade imposed by the United States. The people and government of North Korea are resisting the imperialist pressure to isolate them and portray them as an “evil” state. The courageous people of Iraq are inflicting one blow after another on the US occupation troops. There is widespread resentment and anger among the nations and peoples of the world against the imposition of the Anglo-American model of governance as the best possible and only acceptable system. Everything points to the fact that US imperialism is facing growing isolation in the global arena.

As you know, India has become a centre of attention for the international bourgeoisie at this time. This is because India is endowed with a youthful, intelligent and hard working population, as well as fertile lands, rivers, forests and mineral wealth. Everybody is recognizing the productive potential that resides in India. But the vital question is: Who should be the beneficiary of unleashing this productive potential? A small minority who are the masters of the society today, or the vast majority whose toil produces the material blessings?

The bourgeoisie in our country has been exposed as a thoroughly reactionary and expansionist imperialist force. It is militarizing feverishly and calling for rapid capitalist growth to make India one of the big world powers by 2020. It is ready to embrace other imperialist powers, including even US imperialism, to achieve its own imperialist aim and vision. It is calling for ‘flexibility’ in labour laws, to exploit labour more thoroughly and more intensively than ever. It is eyeing the fertile agricultural land in the country, forests, rivers and rich mineral deposits, as sources of reaping maximum profits for Indian and foreign capital. Laws are being amended to enable Indian and multinational capitalist corporations to enter into legal contracts with individual farmers and peasants, to get hold of the surplus agricultural produce, for processing and sale for maximum profit in the world market.

Workers, peasants, women and youth all over the country are refusing to accept this course, which is based on their super-exploitation and maximum plunder of their land and natural resources by the big capitalists of India and abroad. The number of people who are out on protest on any given day has increased tremendously. This month alone has witnessed literally hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on the streets. They are demanding human rights, defending the right to strike and to unionise. They are demanding the right to work, and the right to food, water, education and health. They are opposing the WTO proposals for further liberalization of trade. They are demanding that the guilty of communal violence must be punished. And they are demanding fundamental changes in the electoral process, and so on.

The working class and broad masses of people in our country are demanding and fighting for an alternative to capitalism and capitalist reforms. They want an alternative to the existing political system where self-serving parties financed by big business interests dictate and impose their will on society, while the toiling masses are converted into ‘vote banks’. They want an end to state terrorism in the name of fighting terrorism. They want an end to communal violence and to the criminalisation of politics. They want those who are responsible for organising mass killings to be convicted and severely punished, no matter how high a position they may occupy.

The big bourgeoisie looks upon the entire territory of the Indian Union as its playground, for reaping maximum profits. In typical imperialist and colonial fashion, it deploys the armed forces of the Union to brutally suppress the national aspirations of different peoples within the country. Peoples in the Northeast, in Kashmir and other places are refusing to put up with this. They are demanding an end to army rule. They want an end to being treated with suspicion, stripped of human rights and subjected to humiliation in their own homeland. They are demanding the repeal of fascist laws including the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. People all over the country have started to raise their voices against the violation of human rights in the Northeast.

There is a growing convergence among the fighting organisations of the people around the principle that their fundamental rights cannot be violated for the benefit of a greedy minority. Working people are demanding that economic growth must benefit them, and not a tiny minority who are already very prosperous.

The growing mass resistance to the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie is leading to the increasing exposure of the party system of governance. Every major party of the Indian bourgeoisie is facing internal crisis today, including the Congress Party, BJP and the Shiv Sena. The entire system of bourgeois democracy faces a serious crisis of credibility.

The broad masses of people in our country do not believe what the politicians tell them any more. People have lost faith in all the varied fronts of the bourgeoisie, which keep replacing one another, promising whatever the people want but doing whatever the big bourgeoisie wants. The majority of people do not believe that elections under the existing system are in their service. They have learnt from their experience that this multi-party representative democracy only serves the big moneyed interests that finance the major parties in Parliament, both ruling and opposition.

The work of our Party is finding tremendous resonance today among our people. Workers and peasants are responding with great enthusiasm to the program to establish their own political power, so that the economy can be reoriented for their benefit.

Comrades and friends,

Why is the intensification of the class struggle not leading to revolution at this time? There are both objective and subjective reasons for this. The most important subjective factor that is holding back the tide of revolution is the refusal of some parties that claim to be communist to carry out their duty of leading the class struggle. Instead of showing the workers, peasants and other discontented masses the way to open the door to the revolution, such parties are compromising with the bourgeois program.

The leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) raise slogans against globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation. But they are not consistent or thorough in their opposition to capitalist reforms. They call for ‘selective privatisation’ in place of ‘indiscriminate privatisation’. This means that they are not opposed to privatisation as a matter of principle. They are only opposed to the manner in which it is implemented. They oppose foreign direct investment in various sectors of the economy, while they welcome it in West Bengal, where their party is in command.

The leaders of CPI(M) claim that there is a better way to implement capitalist reforms. That ‘better way’ is being shown by their Left Front Government in West Bengal. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, with the full support of the central leadership of CPI(M), is wooing the biggest capitalist corporations of the world to invest in his state. The West Bengal Government wants to permit capitalists to flout labour laws in the fast growing sectors. It wants to prevent workers in such sectors from forming their unions and exercising their right to strike. For whom is this a ‘better way’? It will certainly make things better for the capitalist class, but it means further intensification of exploitation and denial of rights for the working class.

The duty of communists is to arm the working class with its own program for addressing the problems of the economy and of political power. However, the leaders of CPI(M) are rallying the working class and people around the ‘Common Minimum Programme’ of the UPA Government led by the Congress Party. Even though they call themselves Marxist, they are deserting the fundamental conclusion of Marxism that the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is irreconcilable. There cannot be a common program that serves both the capitalist class and the working class.

One of the conclusions of Marxism is that the market must be subordinated to human beings and their needs. The economy can and must be reorganized to serve the needs of those who labour and create the wealth. But the CPI(M) is advocating that the workers in West Bengal must serve the needs of the ‘market forces’; that they must offer themselves for super-exploitation and desist from forming unions to fight for their rights. The leaders of CPI(M) are bowing to this new God called the ‘market forces’. Instead of arming the workers with the theory of scientific socialism, they are promoting the vision of a hybrid society and system called “market socialism”.

Like the CPI(M) in India, there are parties in other countries as well, which claim to be communist but do not adhere to the fundamental conclusions and program of Marxism. Such parties are joining the bourgeois chorus that the theory of scientific socialism is no longer valid. They are propping up the illusion that some ‘new’ theory and system will deliver the working people from their exploitation and oppression.

As long as capitalism remains alive, the irreconcilable contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will remain at the centre of social development. It can and must be resolved to open the door for the progress of society. This can be done only by the working class, in alliance with all the oppressed. It can be done only by establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Such a state power is the condition for accomplishing the transition from capitalism to socialism and communism. Such a state power is the NEW thing that is vitally required in this OLD society dominated by capital. There cannot be any other so-called ‘new’ path to emancipate the working class and all of society from exploitation of all kinds.

The bourgeoisie and its political representatives never waver from their fundamental aim. Their fundamental aim is to keep the exploitative system alive, to constantly expand the scope for reaping maximum private profit, and to prevent any danger of losing this paradise as a result of revolution. The bourgeoisie changes its tactics, its method of pursuing its aim. But it never loses sight of the aim itself.

However, some within the communist movement are not adhering to the fundamental aim of the working class. This is one of the main problems that need to be resolved, for the revolutionary tide to once again go into flow and for the working class to ride the tide to victory.

Comrades and friends,

One of the most dangerous ideas being spread among the Indian workers and peasants today is that the Congress Party led UPA government must not be upset because then the BJP will come back to power. This harmful line is acting as a brake on the struggle against the anti-social offensive. The workers are ready to wage uncompromising struggle against capitalist reforms, but they are being advised by leaders who wave the red flag that they must moderate themselves and make sure not to topple the rule of the Congress Party. The leaders of CPI(M) even present themselves on Television as ‘moderates’ who are opposed to all ‘extreme’ ideas, including the idea of revolution.

The idea that Congress Party rule must not be toppled is based on the unscientific and anti-Marxist thesis that the Congress Party is the “lesser evil” as compared with the BJP, on account of being allegedly “more secular” and “less communal”.

Our Party has consistently exposed the reality that secularism and communalism are two sides of the same method of ruling by dividing and diverting the people. The Indian state is a legacy of colonialism. It is communal to the core. It is an instrument of the dictatorship of the reactionary bourgeoisie, which took over the reins of power from the colonial rulers when they left. The Congress Party and BJP are the two principal parties of this reactionary bourgeoisie.

When the leaders of CPI(M) talk about the Congress Party being a lesser evil compared to the BJP, they are not proceeding from the standpoint of the working class and its interests. They are looking at the world from the narrow partisan viewpoint of what will be favourable for their own party. The Congress Party is willing to allow some space in its regime for the leaders of CPI(M), while the BJP is not willing to do that. This is the principal reason why the CPI(M) leadership propagates the line that Congress Party is the ‘lesser evil’. This is not communist logic. It is an extremely self-serving logic. It does not serve to raise the consciousness of the working class. It serves to keep the working class tied to the coat tails of the bourgeoisie.

Take the case of the Bihar assembly elections held recently. As soon as the election dates were announced, our Party called on communists to unite on a common platform and call for a workers’ and peasants’ government in the state. However, this voice of sense was ignored. Any possibility of united action by communists was ruled out by the unilateral decision of the leadership of CPI(M) to ally with the Congress Party and Lalloo Prasad Yadav’s RJD. The CPI(M) took this decision without consulting with other communist parties; and without any effort at all to arrive at an agreement among communists.

Instead of communists contesting on one common platform against the bourgeois offensive, the people of Bihar witnessed as many as 5 different platforms and coalitions in which communists participated. Different parties in the communist movement contested against one another. One of them calling for boycotting the elections. Together, they sent conflicting signals to the workers and peasant masses. What was the result? The JD(U)-BJP alliance has won a majority of seats and formed the government headed by Nitish Kumar. The end result is precisely what the CPI(M) claims it wanted to prevent.

There are important lessons from this experience for all Indian communists. The most important lesson is that communists must not participate in elections for the purpose of bringing their own party to power. Our aim is to bring the workers and peasants to power. This cannot be achieved by different communist parties competing with each other. It cannot be achieved by becoming the tail of one section or another of the bourgeoisie.

When communists participate in elections, they must use the electoral arena to expose the flaws of bourgeois democracy and to popularise the program for a thorough overhaul of the system of democracy and the political process. They must not merge with the bourgeois political process and bourgeois vote bank politics. We must advance the program of changing the political process in the interest of expanding the space for the toiling masses of people.

Comrades and friends,

When our party comrades go among the toiling masses of people and discuss the need for radical changes in the political process, we find that the people respond with great enthusiasm. Workers and peasants in many places have started forming local committees to press for their interests and pursue with the campaign for empowering the toiling people. The line of building organs of power at the base of society is beginning to take roots among the toiling and oppressed masses.

The results of our work show that our people are fed up with the existing democracy. They eagerly welcome its replacement with a modern democracy where it is they who would be the masters. Workers and peasants are demanding that they must have the right to decide who can be a candidate for election, and to decide when any elected representative must be recalled. They must have the right to make laws, set the policy and the direction of the economy and society.

In response to the growing demands of the people and the falling credibility of the existing democracy, the leaders of the parliamentary parties have started talking about the need to establish the right to recall. The leaders of BJP are saying there must be right to recall. So are some of the leaders in the communist movement, including the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The question is – who should exercise the right to recall an elected member of the Parliament or state assembly?

The demand that our Party has raised is that the voters in a constituency must have their constituency committee, which would organise mass meetings at which the candidates would be selected. And when the people in any constituency want to recall their elected representative, their constituency committee will consider the case and organise a vote among the electorate in that constituency to decide the issue.If the people are not organised in their committees, then it is the very same parties who selected the candidates for election that will also end up exercising the right to recall. When some MP or MLA becomes an embarrassment for his or her party, then the party high command can recall such a person, without having to wait for the next election. This is what the establishment parties want.

The key question about the right to recall is – by whom should this right be exercised? By the voters, organised in their committees, or by the high command of the party that gave the person a ‘ticket’ to contest the election? We must agitate among the people on this question.

Establishing the right of voters to recall whoever they have selected and elected is part of the program of the working class to establish a modern democracy. This will be a system where every person of voting age will enjoy the right to select, elect and be elected, as well as to recall the person who has been elected. If the right to recall is separated from this program, it will lose its revolutionary character and can be turned into its opposite. There are many examples around the world, where the bourgeoisie uses the right to recall to pull down individual politicians who are not acting in line with its interests. The US imperialists have used the right to recall trying to topple Chavez in Venezuela.

Those leaders in the communist movement who are talking only about the right to recall are on the side of the bourgeoisie on the question of democracy. They do not want to upset the existing bourgeois democracy, where they have found themselves a comfortable place. They are raising the demand for the right to recall, not as part of the program for thoroughly rehauling the political process. On the contrary, they are raising this demand in order to save the existing parliamentary democracy and its political process. They want to moderate the revolutionary demands of the people and turn them into something that is harmless for the bourgeoisie.

Comrades and friends,

It must be remembered that the CPI(M) was founded by those who split the CPI in 1964, on the pretext that they were defending socialism and the world revolution while the CPI was compromising with the bourgeoisie. It is ironic that the CPI(M) is today one of the most trusted parties of the ruling bourgeoisie, to the extent that it has been entrusted with the position of Speaker of the Lok Sabha. At a time when the working class and broad masses of people are fed up with the existing system of democracy and its political process, the CPI(M) has emerged as the most ardent defender of this parliamentary democracy.

The leaders of CPI(M) have completely embraced the bourgeois view that the world is divided between ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’. This is the world view of George Bush and other imperialist chieftains. It must be remembered that when the Soviet Union sent its armed forces to attack and occupy Afghanistan by force, the leaders of CPI(M) supported this imperialist aggression, justifying it in the name of fighting Islamic fundamentalism. This is the plank of the US imperialists and their allies today.

We cannot forget the fact that following the Naxalbari uprising in 1967, when the call for the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie was capturing the imagination of the youth all over the country, the leadership of CPI(M) joined hands with the Indian state and its policy of brutal repression to crush the revolutionary trend.

We can also not forget that the leaders of CPI(M) have stood on the side of the central government against the peoples of the Northeast, arguing that the Armed Forces (Special) Forces Act must not be repealed. They have defended the deployment of central armed forces against the Nagas, Manipuris and others, repeating the bourgeois slogan that army rule is needed for the sake of defending the “national unity and territorial integrity” of India.

Ever since the birth of the communist movement, the theory of revolution and socialism has come under vicious attacks by the bourgeoisie. Communists have waged a consistent ideological struggle in defence of scientific socialism, against the bourgeoisie and those within the communist movement who spread bourgeois ideas.

The ideological struggle has centred on the question of the revolution: Is it absolutely essential, or can society progress without revolution? Can revolutionary change occur peacefully through communists participating in the bourgeois parliament, or does the bourgeois state have to be smashed through revolutionary violence? Is it essential to replace the bourgeois state with the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat; or can the working class advance to socialism through some other kind of state, in alliance with the national bourgeoisie?

At the present time, in this post Soviet Union period within the epoch of imperialism and revolution, one of the most important questions in the ideological struggle is: What kind of Party? Can the revolution be led by a party that seeks power in its own hands, either through the parliament or through the force of arms? Or should the vanguard party work to place power in the hands of the working class and peasantry, the main material forces of the revolution?

There are parties that say they are against the parliamentary road to socialism. They proclaim their aim of overthrowing the bourgeois state through revolutionary violence. But they do not adhere to the principle that the toiling masses must be the ones organising this overthrow; and that the bourgeois state must be replaced by a workers’ and peasants’ state. They do not politically prepare the working class and peasantry for the revolution, but carry out isolated acts of violence. Such a line of action reduces the toiling masses to a marginal role, just like the vote bank politics does.

The main subjective factor that is preventing the advance of the revolutionary movement at this time consists of those within the communist movement who are defending parliamentary democracy and those who are advocating individual acts of violence and terror. Both these trends are acting against workers and peasants becoming politically organized to establish their own rule. Together, they are acting as the principal roadblock to the preparation of subjective conditions for revolution.

Comrades and friends,

The founding congress of the Communist Ghadar Party of India took place on 25 th December 1980, exactly twenty five years ago. The characteristic feature of our Party is that we never deviate from our goal. We never deviate from the theory and program of communism, which is the condition for the emancipation of the working class and all of society. We never allow factions to emerge inside our Party. We defend the unity of the Party around its single Line of March, decided at our party congress. We wage an uncompromising struggle against all deviations from this line and all forms of bourgeois ideology within the working class movement. However difficult the circumstances, however hard the wind may be blowing against the revolution, we take up the practical tasks of the time, to prepare the conditions for revolution.

The world has gone through major upheavals over the past 25 years. The division of the world into two camps, led by two superpowers, came to an end. The world’s first socialist state, the Soviet Union, went out of being. “Communism is dead”, screamed the capitalists gleefully. Privatisation and liberalization became the new buzzwords. In India, the ruling bourgeoisie abandoned the vision of the Nehruvian socialistic pattern of society and embraced an openly capitalist and imperialist course.

The world revolutionary process was in flow and spread throughout the world following the Great October Revolution in 1917. It reached a high tide following the Second World War. It is in ebb in the present period. This is a period when the capitalists of the world are on the offensive, while the working class is waging a defensive battle. Within this defensive battle, our Party has been steadily advancing as we prepare conditions for the revolution to once again go into flow, and for the working class to lead it to final victory.

This 25 th birthday marks an important milestone in the life and work of our Party. We have reached a point where we face an exciting challenge ahead. The challenge is to make sure that the Indian working class marches on the road to revolution, by defeating the class conciliators within the communist movement.

Comrade Lenin compared the proletarian revolution to a forest fire. In a forest fire, there are many things that burn with different intensity and at different speed. There are leaves and twigs that burn up suddenly, leading to a very tall flame that rises to the skies, but falls equally quickly. Amidst the bursts of flame there are the solid tree trunks, which burn very slowly but surely. Once they are on fire, they keep going, making sure that the fire does not die until the entire forest is thoroughly burnt.

Comrade Lenin compared the working class to the solid tree trunk. There are many other classes and sections in society who go through ups and downs, creating temporary upheavals that do not last long. The working class advances slowly but surely in its struggle against the bourgeoisie. It repeatedly falls down, only to rise up with renewed strength. Once the working class is imbued with the consciousness about its own aim and program, there is nothing that can save the bourgeoisie.

The class conciliators seem to be in such a dominant position in the working class and in the trade unions of our country. However, their influence runs only skin deep. Deep down inside, the majority of workers are longing for a way out of the situation in which they find themselves. They are longing for the alternative to capitalism and capitalist reforms, and to vote bank politics.

Our Party has the weapon that the working class needs. This is the program for the democratic renewal of India. The aim of this program is to establish a workers’ and peasants’ democracy and a voluntary union; so as to reorient the economy to fulfill the rising material and cultural needs of the toiling masses. The key challenge is to organise to ensure that we penetrate deeply and widely among the workers and other toilers, to arm them with this fighting program.

The times are calling for a qualitative leap forward in our work. We have to go deeply and widely in the working class with our line and program. We must intensify the struggle to resolve the internal contradiction in the working class movement. We must arm the workers with the ideas and arguments to defeat the line of class conciliation.

We must find ways to go among the unions of workers, irrespective of which party may be dominating them. We must champion the demand that is already being raised by the workers that they want one fighting union in one factory, and one united trade union movement led by uncompromising fighters against the capitalist offensive.

Workers cannot just keep shouting “Inquilab Zindabaad” at the factory gates and on the streets while their communist leaders run after the big capitalists and their parties. Workers must not accept the line that their job is only to wage economic struggles, while politics should be left in the hands of party bosses who sit in Parliament. Workers have to confront such leaders, who call themselves communists, and demand that they stop leading the working class on the capitalist road.

We must agitate about the need for the working class to field its own candidates that all communists must support. Why should workers vote for the Congress Party or any bourgeois coalition? Workers in a constituency can select candidates from among their peers, and demand that anyone who calls himself a communist should support this candidate and nobody else in that constituency.

We must pay first rate attention to the work of enabling the workers, peasants, women, youth, oppressed nationalities and tribal peoples, to build and strengthen their respective mass organisations. This must go hand in hand with the work of building non-partisan committees to affirm the rights of the people, as the base for a broad united front against the bourgeoisie.

Comrades and friends,

Soon after the founding of our Party, we sent a delegation to participate in the 8 th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania. Our delegation had the good fortune to meet and discuss with Comrade Enver Hoxha, leader of the Party of Labour that had led the revolution and the building of socialism in Albania.

Comrade Enver told our delegation, “Yours is an ancient country and civilization. Your people have a long tradition of fighting against oppression. At various times, revolutionary situations have been created in your country. But the revolution could not succeed due to betrayal by the revisionist leadership. You and your party are young. Your Party is Marxist-Leninist and has a correct line. You must not worry about how many people are around your party today. If the party firmly adheres to the revolutionary line, upholds the bright red banner and persists with the work, then the day will come when millions of workers, peasants and patriotic people will be marching with your party on the road of revolution”. The past 25 years of experience in building our Party in the course of leading the class struggle confirms the correctness of what Comrade Enver told us.

When I see all of you today, from all parts of the country, men and women, young, middle aged and old, it fills me with great confidence and pride in what we have accomplished. It fills me with excitement and enthusiasm about what we are going to accomplish in our next 25 years.

The times are calling on Indian communists to step up the work of preparing the subjective conditions for the revolution. The challenge is to raise the political consciousness of the working class to reject the path of bourgeois parliamentarism and individual terrorism. The challenge is to organise the working class to wage uncompromising struggle against the bourgeois program of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation. It is to ensure that the working class unites firmly around its own program for the democratic renewal of India, and inspires the peasantry and all the oppressed to rally around this fighting program. Our Party has decided to take on this challenge.

Come comrades – let us pledge to strengthen the steel like unity of the Party around its General Line and Program. Let us pledge to step up our agitational work among the workers, peasants, women and youth, and organise them to wage tit for tat struggle against the bourgeois offensive. Let us pledge to build a broad united front against the bourgeois program, and around the working class program to open the path to revolution. Let us lead the way towards the rule of workers and peasants and a voluntary Indian Union.

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