Break the stranglehold of capitalist politics on the working class movement!

Call of the CGPI, May 1, 2000

Comrade workers,

Call of the CGPI, May 1, 2000

Comrade workers,

The BJP led NDA government is going full steam ahead with the Indian big bourgeoisie’s anti-working class anti-peasantry and anti-national course of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation. The Vajpayee Government, which promised to be different from the Congress and other governments of the past that followed the Congress agenda, is proving to be no different from the previous governments. It is carrying out the behest of the big bourgeoisie.

Attacking the livelihood of workers, peasants and working people with a no-holds-barred vengeance, the bourgeoisie is mortgaging the sovereignty of India to the imperialists and their organisations like WTO. It is colluding and coordinating with the chief enemy of the workers of the whole world, US imperialism, against the interests of the Indian and other peoples, to fulfil its own narrow aims and those of its imperialist allies.

This anti-worker, anti-peasant and anti-national course is meeting with powerful resistance from all sections of India’s toiling masses. Workers and working people from all sectors of the economy – power, heavy industry, metallurgy, mining, food processing, engineering, education, health, finance – are on the war path. Lakhs of workers and working people have participated in massive protests and demonstrations against the ruinous course pursued by the government. The peasantry in many parts of the country is protesting the pro-capitalist pro-imperialist course of the rulers, including the elimination of subsidies on agricultural production, which is leading to ruin of vast numbers of peasants. India is seething with revolt.

The first 7 months of the NDA rule has been characterized by the unholy alliance of the ruling alliance and the principal "opposition" party, the Sonia Congress. Between them, they have declared that there is no alternative to the attacks on the working masses. The BJP, the Congress, and the host of smaller and regional parties comprising the NDA alliance including the socialists are showing their desperation to be in the forefront of the race to liberalise and privatise the economy. The desperation with which they fell over each other in parliament to shake the hands of the imperialist chieftain Clinton is eloquent testimony to where there hearts and their interests lie.

On the other side, the concerted attacks on the workers and peasants and the mounting struggle of the working class are putting pressure on all organisations claiming to represent worker-peasant interests to stand up and be counted. As a result, the trade unions affiliated to all parties, including to the parties of the ruling alliance as well as the Congress, have been forced to join the protests of the workers to varying degrees. These unions are finding it hard to justify to their members the open anti-working class stance of the parties that control them.

Comrade workers! For too long have the capitalist parties succeeded in dividing the working class and depriving it of its independent program. For too long have the capitalist parties succeeded in making the class impotent, a tail of the program of the capitalist parties. For too long have the capitalist parties succeed in depoliticising the working class by imposing bourgeois politics on it. The present situation facing the working class movement is a direct consequence of this splitting of the working class movement by the capitalist parties. It is this division that has given the capitalists confidence that they can get away with any outrageous attack on the working class. In this connection, workers must also understand that the role of some in the communist movement who have conciliated with capitalism and created illusions about parliamentary democracy has been no different. They too have contributed to the division of the working class, to its depoliticisation.

Comrade workers, May Day 2000 sets new tasks in front of the working class. Among these tasks, the most important is to break the stranglehold of the capitalist parties and their politics on the working class movement. The division of the working class by the capitalist parties and the conciliators with capitalist democracy must be ended. This is the demand of the times. This is the necessary condition for the working class to make a breakthrough in the struggle against privatisation and liberalisation, in the struggle to defend their livelihood and rights.

Comrade workers, as a result of the mounting struggle of the working class and peasantry, the course of liberalisation and privatisation is losing credibility in the eyes of the toiling masses. This is being reflected in the beginning of the breakdown of unity amongst the capitalist parties over this course. We are seeing this reflected in the moves of various bourgeois politicians to once again come forward as saviours of the toiling masses and to promote a third front yet again. The aim of the capitalists is to once again create confusion amongst the workers that there are messiahs among the capitalist politicians, that the workers do not need to rise up and unite and fight for their own independent program. There are enough conciliators in the working class movement waiting to once again tie the working class to the coat-strings of yet another bourgeois formation.

Comrade workers! Firmly reject this course which is nothing but a dead-end road for the working class. The life-experience of the past 12 years is testimony to the dirty role played by capitalist parties and politicians of all hues in paving the way for the present situation. Workers must get rid of any illusions that within this system, liberalisation and privatisation can be reversed merely by the replacement of one party by another.

We workers must unfurl our own independent program of deep-going transformations. We must unite the peasantry and all toiling and oppressed around this program. We constitute the vast majority of India, we are the producers of all the material wealth. Yet power vests in the hands of a minority, and its is the interests of this minority that is consistently upheld in this system. The capitalist parties are the upholders and defenders of the power of the capitalist class.

Deep-going transformation means that the economy must serve the interests of workers and peasants. It means that the economy must ensure livelihood for all. For this to happen, political power must be seized from the hands of the capitalist minority and vested with the real masters of India, the workers and peasants. This is the aim of the struggle we are waging today. This is the call of May Day 2000!

Fight to halt the program of privatisation and liberalisation!

Fight for political power in the hands of workers and peasants!

Nayi sadi ki hai yeh maang, hindustan ka navnirman!

Hum hai iske malik, hum hai hindustan, mazdooor, kisan aurat aur jawan!

Inquilab zindabad

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