AFTER the formation of the CPI(M), the first election was conducted in Kerala in the year 1965. It was a time of ordeal for our Party. Most of our leaders were arrested and they were imprisoned by the central government calling them as Chinese agents. This caused a severe crisis on the organisational front.

THE Central Committee has decided to observe the 50th anniversary of the Seventh Congress and has called upon all Party units to observe the anniversary. Accordingly, we are also holding programmes in West Bengal to mark this historic occasion.

SINCE its inception in 1920, the Communist party has played a major role in the struggle for the emancipation of women from the chains which enslave them in exploitative socio-economic systems in India. Communist leaders like EMS Namboodiripad, AK Gopalan, P Sundarayya, BT Ranadive played pioneering roles in taking up the issues of women in direct action. Communist initiatives in supporting, mobilising and organising different sections of women in class and democratic struggles on women’s demands got a huge fillip with the formation of the CPI(M).

IT was on the day of the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution, on its 47th anniversary, November 7 in 1964 that the CPI(M) formally announced its formation with its revolutionary Programme at the conclusion of its 7th Congress. The CPI(M) continues to maintain that the origins of the Indian Communist Party lie in its formation in Tashkent on October 17, 1920.

THE formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) marked an important stage in the Communist movement of the country. Fifty years ago, 32 members of the National Council of the Communist Party of India walked out of the National Council meeting and decided later to re-found the Communist Party based on a new Programme. On this historic anniversary, we commemorate the role played by this section of the leadership of the united party.