The Maharashtra Regional Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India had organised a school for its members and supporters on this topic on September 9, 2007. This was in line with the decision of the Regional Conference held in April earlier this year. Over the years the composition of the working class has been changing, all over the country. Some sectors of industry have been dying out while others are coming into being. Large sections of those newly joining the work force are not unionized. At the same time, a substantial proportion of the work force is highly skilled and educated. It was felt necessary to look afresh at the work of the Party comrades organizing amongst the workers, so as to strengthen this work. This proposal had been enthusiastically endorsed by the comrades of the Region. A committee of young communist workers was set up to study the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on this subject and lead the discussion amongst the comrades in the region on this issue.

Welcoming the participants, who consisted mainly of young workers, to the school, the Secretary of the Party in the region pointed out that the young comrades of the committee had heroically carried out their task. While grappling with real-life problems like long working hours, and pressures of jobs, the committee had met several times for collective study sessions which often went on till the wee hours of the morning. Their energy and enthusiasm were such that often their friends, who were not members of the committee, would drop in and try to learn whatever they could. They had studied “On Strikes”, “What is to be Done?” and other literature and were going to endeavour to present what they had learnt in the context of today’s conditions. The comrades had initially found the task quite daunting. Their effort is heroic. Heroism is manifested in many forms. On the battlefield, as well as in the struggle to persist with a necessary, difficult, and seemingly daunting task. Marxism-Leninism is a science, and mastering science is not easy. It demands intensive effort and years of persistence. Yet it must be done if we are to liberate our land from capitalism.

Before the presentations were made, the participants were asked to express his or her expectations from the school. “I want to learn about the history of the trade union movement.” “I have learnt a lot about trade unions, but did not understand. I want to learn.” “I want to learn so that I can explain to the people among whom I work.” “I have been working in the trade union movement for many years. I will compare what I have learnt through my experience with what I will learn today so I can work better.” These were some of the responses. One young comrade said. “In school I used to be a shaitaan, but here I have come voluntarily to learn because I think what I learn will be very useful. I want to increase my knowledge about trade unions. I like this subject. I like strikes. This is a brahmastra of the working class. If they take it away, how will we fight? There has been a lot of betrayal by the leadership of various unions. This school will help us to work among the workers.” “How should we work in the working class is what I want to learn.” This was expressed by a veteran comrade who has spent several decades in the trade union movement.

The Regional Secretary assured the comrades that we would revisit these expectations at the end of the school when we would sum up what we had achieved and what needs to be done to improve our schools and our work further. We would look at the various concrete activities that we could take up to work both in the large industries as well as among the unorganized workers.

The next session of the school began with a presentation “On Strikes” by a young woman comrade. The discussion at the end was very lively. “Workers who go on strikes are accused of being lazy. I learnt that it requires a lot of sacrifice to go on strike, and it is not easy. I also learnt that the strike has to be properly planned and organised. I did not know that sometimes the maalik himself encourages the workers, through his agents, to strike work.” “The pamphlet was written when trade unions were illegal in Russia, and hence strikes too. That situation may come tomorrow in our country. It is already there in SEZs.”

The self-proclaimed shaitaan pointed out how his misconception about strikes had got cleared during the session. “I learnt that a strike is an important weapon of the working class, but it is not a brahmastra. It is a school of war, but not war itself.” “The leadership of a strike is very important. Otherwise it can lead to failure, and worse still, demoralization. Strikes do not bring about revolution, but if led properly, they can have a great morale-boosting effect and can help the working class to appreciate its own strength. Proper leadership can win the demands of the workers, but they still are within the system. In the hustle and bustle of their daily life, the workers generally have neither the time nor the energy to increase their understanding. But when they are on strike, they have the time as well as the inclination to learn. If the leadership is communist, it can use the strike as a great opportunity to increase the consciousness of the workers. Consciousness about the necessity of overthrowing the system, and a conviction that it can be done.”

Summing up lessons from Lenin's path breaking pamphlet “What is to be Done?”, the comrade presenting declared that he had to read it many times and discuss it thoroughly before he started understanding something. “But it was well worth the effort. I noticed that the more I understood, the more my activity level as a communist went up!” It was decided that comrades should be allowed to intervene during the course of the presentation itself. They could ask questions or explain a point in their own words, using contemporary examples as illustrations.

When the first day of the school concluded, all the comrades expressed their strong feeling that such study was very essential. They planned and assigned tasks for the next session of the school, to be held in October 2007.