January 1-15, 2007

New Year Greetings from the CC of the CGPI, January 1, 2007

The Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India greets all the members and sympathisers of the Party, all the communists and revolutionary forces a very happy and fruitful New Year. The workers and peasants and broad masses of toiling people are waging powerful struggles against the capitalist and imperialist course being pursued by the UPA government. Let us make 2007 a year wherein through struggle and sacrifice we make decisive advances in the mission of establishing the rule of workers and peasants.

The struggle of workers and peasants against the capitalist offensive for political power is being sabotaged by those in the communist movement who have made defense of the rule of the exploiters the mission of their lives, who create illusions about a "human face" of capitalism. Let us make 2007 a year in wherein the Party unites the revolutionary forces against these treacherous conciliators with social democracy in the communist movement.

The year 2007 is the 150 th year since the great Ghadar of 1857, when our people rose up in revolt and asserted that “India belongs to us, we are her masters!” That revolt took place at a time when capitalism was growing and spreading all over the world, through colonial and semi-colonial plunder of the majority of nations and peoples. The Ghadar of 1857 shook colonial rule, not only in this subcontinent but on the world scale. A century and a half later, the echoes of that Ghadar continue to reverberate, as the people of India clash with the existing political order in which they remain excluded from decision making power. Those who believe that India must belongs to her people are clashing with the minority that has usurped power and is driving the country on a dangerous course, in their narrow interest, as if India belongs only to them. Let us unite all the fighting forces in India against the bourgeoisie and against the conciliators to fulfill the unfulfilled aims of the great Ghadar, with the call of the times — Workers, Peasants, Women and Youth, We Constitute India, We are her Masters!

The year 2007 is the centenary year of the birth of the great patriot and revolutionary of our people, Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He fought for an India free from all forms of exploitation and oppression, a socialist India. Socialism has been turned into a policy objective by the concilators with the bourgeoisie in the communist movement. Let 2007 be the year when the youth led by the party seize the red flag of communism which is being besmirched by the traitors in the communist movement.

The year 2007 is the 90 th year since the Great October Revolution, which broke the chain of world capitalism when it had developed to its highest stage of imperialism. This is an important landmark for all communist revolutionaries, in India and in every country. In the 90 th year since that landmark event, imperialism may look like it is all powerful, doing what it pleases. However, beneath the surface, the capitalist economic system is in very deep crisis on the world scale. The United States is sliding into an economic abyss, with a threat of recession in 2007, and an even bigger looming threat of the Dollar collapsing in the near future. The more it sinks into crisis, the more ferocious and warmongering imperialism becomes. More and more people are recognizing that the world can be saved from destructive wars only through another round of revolutions.

The year 2007 is also the 60 th year since the Great Betrayal of the Indian working class and people. The transfer of power in 1947 was a complete negation of the aspirations and aims of the Ghadar of 1857. It was also the complete negation of the lessons of the Great October Revolution

The transfer of power ensured the continuation of plunder in new forms. The Indian bourgeoisie became the master of India. The political institutions of state power that the British created in 1858 and further perfected in 1935 were retained as the basic institutions of independent India. Continuation of exploitation and oppression was presented by the new rulers as a “new” system, a “new” Republic. The change was superficial, not deep going. At the foundation, the state machine remained the same as under colonial rule, with the Indian Civil Service being renamed Indian Administrative Service. To this was added the political process of representative democracy, modeled after the Westminster system of the British bourgeoisie.

A principal factor behind this was the betrayal by the leadership of the Communist Party. The Communist Party conciliated with and tailed the Congress Party which stood for transfer of power to the bourgeoisie without deep going social revolution.

The greatest betrayal of the working class took place in the socialist Soviet Union after the rise of Khrushchev to the head of the Bolshevik Party. This had a major negative impact on India. The leadership of CPI began to repeat the lies and illusions spread by the Khrushchevites. They spread illusions about bourgeois democracy and about the Congress Party's "socialist pattern of society". They declared that there was no need for revolution. They spread the illusion that socialism could be achieved peacefully through parliamentary means. They split the party in 1964. Communism in India was reduced to a distant policy objective, as two major factions, CPI and CPI (M) competed in parliamentary struggle to become crisis managers for the bourgeoisie. These two parties continue to play the role of fire fighters for the bourgeoisie in the communist and workers movement.

The year 2007 is the 40 th year since the Naxalbari uprising, which shook the conscience of all Indian communists, and once again placed revolution on the agenda. Communist revolutionaries began to organise the peasantry for seizure of political power through armed revolution. Naxalbari represented the rejection by Indian communist revolutionaries of the illusion of a parliamentary path to socialism. The echoes of Naxalbari reverberated all across the country and inspired the youth to take to the path of revolution. It gave rise to a new party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

The CPI (M-L) could not overcome factionalism within its ranks, nor the tendency of looking abroad for leadership. It could not withstand the repression unleashed by the Indian state. It disintegrated, split into numerous factions. While the workers and peasants fought pitched battles with the bourgeoisie and its state, they were left without a Communist Party to guide them. Indira Gandhi imposed the National Emergency in such conditions, to remove revolution from the agenda of the people and impose conciliation with the bourgeoisie as the dominant line in the communist movement. Various sections of the communist movement, including factions of the CPI (ML) capitulated to this pressure. They either joined the bandwagon of Mrs Gandhis “fight against right reaction” or the plank of “restoration of democracy”.

Recognizing the serious situation facing the people and the revolution, communist revolutionaries began preparing to reestablish the vanguard party of the Indian revolution. The need was to build a party that drew appropriate lessons from the experience of the Indian and world communist movement. The need was to defeat parliamentary cretinism as well as the line of individual terrorism and build a party that coul lead the people of India on the road of revolution and socialism. With this in mind,
communist revolutionaries met in Toronto, Canada, under the aegis of the Hindustani Ghadar Party (Organisation of Indian Marxist Leninsts Abroad) at the first Congress of this organization and decided to contribute actively to the reconstitution of the vanguard of the Indian working class.

September 5, 2007 marks the 30 th anniversary of this great occasion. The Communist Ghadar Party of India was founded in 1980. Militating in the ranks of our party are an increasing number of youth from the working class and peasantry. We have a Party that has been steeled in conditions, when the wind has been blowing against communism on the world scale, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The ruling bourgeoisie is on an extremely dangerous course today – to make India one of the big imperialist powers of the world. It is calling this Bharat Nirman There is growing resistance to the course being followed, especially from the toilers and tillers.

The conditions are crying out for the Navnirman of India. Navnirman means to make a clean break with the colonial legacy in economic and political terms. It means that the workers and peasants must get rid of the ‘rule of law’ which the British imposed and which the Indian courts defend to this day. It means to replace party rule by a new system and process of the rule of workers and peasants – a direct democracy in place of representative democracy. Navnirman means to reorient the economy to fulfill the growing needs of the people, rather than to maximize plunder in the private interests of a super rich minority.

Navnirman means to complete the tasks of the anti-colonial struggle by establishing the rule of workers and peasants through revolution, and open the path to socialism and communism.. It means to realise the call of our martyrs that India belongs to us – the workers, peasants, women and youth. We are her masters.

Our Party has taken up the task of providing leadership to the toilers and tillers for the struggle to establish their rule. We communists usher in the New Year with great optimism. We derive this optimism from our work, from the correct summation of the positive and negative lessons we draw from history. The Central Committee calls upon all party members to work resolutely according to a plan to defeat the class conciliators within the communist movement. We must smash the line of tailing the ‘secular’ faction of the bourgeoisie and seeking common ground between the exploiters and the exploited. This is the vital lesson we draw from history.

Inquilab Zindabad!