One working class, one program, one communist leadership!

Defeat the class conciliators within the working class movement!

Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 1st May 2006

Comrade workers!

Defeat the class conciliators within the working class movement!

Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 1st May 2006

Comrade workers!

May Day 2006 is coming at a time when the struggle against imperialist war, fascist attacks and capitalist ‘reforms’ is mounting on the world scale. The workers and youth of France have managed to put a brake, however temporary, on the bourgeois offensive to deny the hard won rights of labour. The working people of Nepal have forced the King to step down in view of the mass sentiment. The anti-imperialist and anti-war protests all over the world have deepened the divisions among the big powers, posing serious problems for the US imperialist war plans on Iran.

The ruling bourgeoisie in our country is rapidly pursuing its aim of becoming a global imperialist power by 2020. To achieve its own imperialist aim, it has agreed to a strategic alliance with US imperialism, creating new dangers for the people of India and of other countries. The imperialist drive of the Indian bourgeoisie is being pursued in the name of “reforms with a human face”, while facts show that it is at the expense of the rights and well-being of the workers, peasants and the majority of the population.

The struggle of the Indian working class is being compromised by those within the communist movement who are following a two-faced policy. These are the leaders who shout militant slogans against the bourgeoisie at mass demonstrations, while extending support to the UPA Government headed by the Congress Party, arguing that it is the “lesser evil” compared to the BJP.

Two years have passed since this UPA came to power at the centre. For all its pretensions of being against communalism, what action has it taken against those guilty of communal crimes? It has not even arrested Narendra Modi, well known for being the chief executive officer of the genocide in Gujarat in 2002. What use is such a regime for fighting against communal forces?

May Day 2006 is an occasion to unite around our basic demands and strategic aim of replacing capitalism by socialism, and resolve to defeat those within our movement who are conciliating with the program of the bourgeoisie. It is an occasion to reiterate the economic and political aims of the working class, thereby laying the basis for a united movement with one program, with one unified communist leadership.

Comrade workers!

Facts are showing more and more clearly with each passing day that the UPA Government’s reform program with a ‘human face’ is nothing but a continuation and extension of the ‘second generation reforms’ of the NDA Government, with some frills attached. The essence of this program is to put more into the hands of the big corporate giants, at the expense of the toilers and tillers, with the aim of developing India into one of the global imperialist powers of the 21 st century.

In the name of ‘Urban Renewal’, the UPA Government is paving the way for corporate giants led by Wal Mart to capture prime land in the cities. In its drive to convert our cities into a heaven for the biggest capitalists of the world, the State is mercilessly attacking the homes and livelihood of workers, small and medium-scale traders and other urban family businesses.

In the name of ‘Bharat Nirman’, policies are being changed at the central and state level to allow giant agro-business corporations to get hold of the surplus generated by our hard working peasantry. Giant corporations have begun to dominate agricultural trade, and they hope to subsequently also get hold of the most fertile tracts of land so as to reap maximum profits through the maximum possible degree of plunder.

The bourgeoisie claims that putting more into the hands of monopoly capital, by robbing those who labour and by plundering the natural wealth, is the best possible path for India. The truth is the exact opposite of this lying claim of the bourgeoisie.

It is precisely the orientation of maximisation of private profit in the hands of the biggest corporations and banks at any cost, which is leading to the destruction of productive forces. The human productive forces of our country are under utilized today, with millions having no employment or only partially employed, because the economy is run in the private interests of capitalist corporations, who invest only when and where they are assured of maximu m profits. This is also the reason for the rapid depletion of forest cover and other forms of environmental degradation. Budgetary allocations for essential social services are going down because too much is consumed in servicing the public debt, in unproductive militarization, arms spending and other hand outs to big business.

The path to all-round progress in favour of the working people lies in putting an end to the system of exploitation and plunder, not in expanding and further perfecting this system, or giving it a ‘human face’. The working class demands and fights for the reorientation of the economy to fulfill the needs of the toilers and tillers. The economy must be managed with the aim of putting more into the hands of the toilers and tillers, to raise their standard of living year after year. This must become the central aim of the economy, the aim of the key investment decisions that are made. Investing in the productive forces requires, first and foremost, investing in the well-being and productive capacity of the human beings – the workers and peasants, whose labour produces the wealth of India.

What we have today is an economy that is geared to fatten the super rich on a daily basis, through maximum possible degree of exploitation of labour and plunder of natural resources. While this is how the economy runs, day after day, the government allocates some meagre resources for some ‘safety net’ schemes. After wholesale robbery of the toiling masses, a small part is returned to save some poor souls. Such schemes play the role of a safety valve, to prevent revolutionary pressure from building up too much against the exploitative order.

The bourgeoisie is arguing that allowing capitalists to flout labour laws so as to super-exploit workers is the necessary condition to achieve accelerated growth in GDP and employment. “More intense exploitation is good for the working class”, they claim. The truth is exactly the opposite.

Steady growth of consumption by the broad masses of people will be the most stable basis for rapid growth of production of all essential needs of human life. The aim of the working class is to put an end to exploitation being the basis of social production, and build a society where the means of social production are socially owned. This will be achieved by the working class, in alliance with the peasantry, taking charge of the social surplus and deploying it to ensure prosperity and protection for all.

With this aim and perspective, we must oppose and contest the false claim of the bourgeoisie that denial of labour rights and lowering of wages will promote economic growth and employment. On the contrary, what will be best for the economy is a rise in wages commensurate with the rising productivity of Indian labour and the rising level of human needs.

We must demand and fight for universal application of the rights of labour, which have been won and recognised in law for one section of the working class. These rights must become inviolable rights of every worker, without exception. We must demand and fight for an immediate halt to the program of capitalist reforms and ‘flexibility’ in the terms of employment of labour.

We must demand a moratorium on servicing the debt to all external lending institutions, and on interest payments to domestic banks. We must demand cutbacks in arms spending. We must demand that the money thus saved be reallocated for investing in the working people and their well being.

Stop fattening the corporate giants! Put more into the hands of the toilers and tillers!

Comrade workers!

The bourgeois parties and coalitions that are contending for power in the ongoing state assembly elections are unable to hide the fact that they are all committed to implement the same program of liberalisation and privatisation, in one way or another. Unable to convince the voters that it can provide prosperity and protection for all, the bourgeoisie is reviving old time-tested diversionary tactics, such as OBC reservation and the building of Ram mandir at Ayodhya.

Workers and peasants, who constitute the productive majority of the population in the country, must remain at the tail of one or another faction of the propertied bourgeois class – those who live off the labour of others. This is what the bourgeoisie and its parties want. They wants us to be pre-occupied with choosing between one capitalist party and another, one coalition and another, both of which are known to be committed to implement the same program to fatten the corporate giants.

What the working class needs is a new political system and political process where the majority – the toilers and tillers – will exercise power. This means that it is we, the workers and peasants, who will send delegates from our midst to all the decision making bodies. And we will be able to recall such delegates at any time. In such a workers’ and peasants’ democracy, we will have a say in how the country is run, in what policy decisions are taken and in whose interest.

We need to build a political front for people’s power – that is, for a democratic dictatorship of the working class and peasantry, to replace the existing fascistic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. We must reconstitute India as a voluntary union of consenting nations and peoples, rather than its present structure, which is a colonial imposition from above, backed by brute force.

We need to build people’s committees in local areas, a network of such organs at the local, district, state and all-India levels, as the building blocks of the future system of workers’ and peasants’ democracy. The working class must lead by example, by fighting for unity in action in each factory, in each industry, in each state and throughout the country, and by actively participating in building the organs of a new political power.

Lay the foundation of a Workers’ & Peasants’ Republic and a voluntary Indian union!

Comrade workers!

May Day 2006 is an occasion for all workers to ponder over the fact that the Indian working class, which has one common aim of replacing capitalism by socialism, has numerous political parties that speak in its name. Some of these parties that speak in the name of the working class have been propping up Congress rule at the centre, and been acting as the faithful supporters of the bourgeois program of capitalist reforms with a ‘human face’. They have made common cause with the UPA and its so-called National Common Minimum Programme.

The role being played by such parties is acting as the single most important factor preventing the working class from making any advance in its struggle against the bourgeois offensive. It has therefore become essential to discuss and debate this question openly at this time.

Every communist agrees, at least in words, that if the Indian working class is politically united around one program and led by one communist party, then it will be an invincible force. Why then can we not overcome the disunity in the movement?

The reason lies in the fact that some within the movement have conciliated and merged with bourgeois democracy. They are compromising with the capitalist-imperialist course of globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation. They have accepted the bourgeois assertion that there is no alternative except to give capitalist reforms a ‘human face’. They are seeking to become the best party for implementing the bourgeois program and reconciling the workers and peasants to this course. Such class conciliators need to be defeated in order to forge the unity of communists and of the working class on a revolutionary basis.

While one set of parties that call themselves communist have become champions of bourgeois democracy and its vote bank politics, there are others who advocate individual acts of terror and permanent boycott of the political process. Both these trends are serving the interests of the bourgeoisie and not of the working class. They are preventing the workers from building political unity of all the discontented people. They are preventing the unity of communists from being forged around the revolutionary alternative.

It is high time that workers begin to confront such leaders and tell them, “Comrades, we are sick and tired of voting for one or another parliamentary coalition or not voting at all. Why do you not unite with all communists to build a popular front – a worker-peasant alliance with one unified communist leadership?”

The popular front must be built from below and from above, but mainly from below. There is no use if one more Third Front is formed by the leaders of various ‘recognised’ parliamentary parties other than the BJP and the Congress Party. We have seen many such coalitions before that have been formed only from above, in which the leaders of CPI and CPI(M) have participated. Such coalitions have only served as temporary arrangements for maintaining bourgeois rule, until the Congress or the BJP is ready to take charge.

What we need is a new kind of coalition, a popular political front, where all those forces that are left out of the existing democracy can militate. We need to build such a popular front by forging unity on a political basis. We must build unity around the concrete aim of replacing one kind of political power, which excludes the toiling majority, by another kind of power that includes the majority.

Reject bourgeois coalitions! Build a popular front under working class leadership!

Comrade workers!

Since its inception more than 100 years ago, May Day has represented a day when we workers reiterate our resolve to defend and fight for our common interests. Today, our common interests are facing a grave threat. Workers, peasants, women and youth, the peoples of oppressed nations, nationalities, tribal peoples, displaced people, linguistic and religious minorities, dalits – are all being threatened by the greed of big business, the aggressive drive of US imperialism and its rivals, and the imperialist drive of the Indian bourgeoisie.

Let us resolve to unite in defence of the rights of labour, without any compromise or conciliation under any pretext. Let us resolve to continue the struggle for an immediate halt to the anti-worker, anti-peasant, anti-national and anti-social program of liberalisation and privatisation, and not be satisfied with any ‘human face’ being added to capitalist super-exploitation and imperialist plunder. Let us resolve to step up the anti-imperialist struggle, to halt the aggressive drive of US imperialism and undermine the US-India strategic alliance.

Let us resolve, on this May Day 2006, to unite around the program for ushering in a workers’ and peasants’ democracy, in place of the existing party dominated capitalist democracy. Let us resolve to build committees at every level, as organs to empower the people.

Let us resolve to strengthen the political unity of the workers, peasants and broad masses of people, in the form of a popular front for the democratic renewal of India – placing the toilers and tillers at centre-stage.

Let us redouble our efforts to restore the unity of Indian communists on a revolutionary basis, by opposing and defeating the class conciliators within our ranks.

Workers of all countries, Unite! Workers and peasants of India, Unite!

We have nothing to lose but our chains! We have a whole world to win!

Inquilab Zindabad!

 

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