ON the first day of the 21st Congress of the CPI(M) on April 14, the main agenda of the delegate session which began in the afternoon, was the Draft Review Report on the Political-Tactical Line (PTL). The Review Report was introduced by Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Party at the 21^st Congress. The main features of the Review Report were highlighted in his two hour presentation. The Review covers the period of the past 25 years.

Introducing the Review Report on the Political-Tactical Line adopted by the Central Committee, Prakash Karat said that this is for the first time since the 10th Party Congress that a Review Report on the PTL is discussed in the Congress. Normally in the Party Congress, the first agenda that we discuss is the draft political resolution that we propose to adopt, followed by the draft political organisational report, which deals with the experiences of the three years since the last Congress. This time the Central Committee decided that we should not just have a review of the PTL of the 20th Congress alone, but instead we should do a re-examination of the PTL of the last 25 years. Prakash Karat recalled that after the last Lok Sabha elections, an in-depth review of the election results was conducted because our Party suffered worst electoral reverses since the formation of the Party in 1964. The review pointed out that the electoral reversal has something deeper behind it – the failure to advance our Party, its independent strength and its mass base. Despite successive exhortations to increase the independent strength of our Party and move towards the strategic goal of the Party of building a Left and Democratic Front, we have not been able to do so, therefore the Central Committee decided to conduct a deeper examination. This exercise is held in four aspects: (i) re-examination of PTL (ii) review of Party organisation, its functions, its work, (iii) present state of mass organisations and their independent functioning and (iv) undertake a concrete study of socio-economic changes, since the ushering in of neo-liberal policies, its effects on various sections and depending on this formulate suitable slogans and demands. These tasks help in giving correct orientation to the Party to advance and to the new PTL to be adopted. In order to do justice to the organisational review, an organisational plenum would be convened within six months to discuss in detail the organisational matters.

Detailing the scope of the review, Prakash Karat said the review begins from the period of 1990-91, because major changes took place during this time, with the fall of the USSR and the change in international correlation of class forces and the resultant impact. Secondly, in our country, the ruling classes and the government embarked on a full-fledged embrace of the neo-liberal policies and there was a rise of Hindutva forces, which gained ground and this period also saw a growth of identity politics. All this coincided with the period after the 13th Congress of the Party in 1988-89. The review begins from this period.

The building of the independent strength of the Party, started losing momentum in 1990s, therefore we are reviewing the experiences of the last 25 years, he said.

The strategic goal of the Party as mentioned in the Programme is to achieve Peoples’ Democratic Revolution. From time to time, to achieve this strategic goal, we formulate tactics. The bourgeoisie-landlord classes are still dominant, the tactical line to achieve our strategic goal was to build an interim front, which is the Left Democratic Front (LDF). This was first spelt out at Jullandar Congress in 1978 and for the first time, the concept of the LDF was spelt out. Based on our experiences from 1972-1978, we decided to form an interim front for achieving the Peoples’ Democratic revolution. “The struggle to build this front is part of our endeavour to bring about a change in the correlation of class forces, to end a situation in which the people can choose only between two bourgeois-landlord parties, and get imprisoned within the framework of the present system. By gathering all Left and democratic forces together for further advance, the Party makes a beginning to consolidate these forces which, in future, will participate in shaping the alliance for People’s Democracy under the leadership of the working class. The left and democratic Front is not to be understood as only an alliance for elections or Ministry, but a fighting alliance of the forces for immediate advance – economic and political – and for isolating the reactionary classes that hold the economy in their grip.” Over the years, we seem to have forgotten the essence of this concept and confined to build electoral and not a fighting alliance.

Elaborating the meaning of Left and Democratic forces, Prakash Karat said, forces mean not just parties, but all democratic forces and sections behind different parties and groups.

He pointed out that the review of the tactical lines pursued since the 13th Congress shows that various aspects of successive PTLs have helped to meet immediate needs like how to defeat the Congress led governments, to face the rising BJP and isolate it, tactics to oust Rajiv Gandhi government, 1996 elections to stop the BJP etc. They had served the purpose to meet the immediate situation, to rally non-Congress secular parties. They also helped in the fight against regionalism, chauvinism and such threats, to take up issues of dalits, adivasis, minorities, women, etc and to forge Left unity. It helped to constitute Left led governments in Tripura, Kerala and to strengthen West Bengal government. However, in terms of two key issues of how we have advanced the independent strength of the Party and how have we moved ahead towards rallying Left and Democratic forces to bring a change in the correlation of class forces, the successive PTLs were found wanting to deliver on these two key issues. Hence the self-critical examination of the PTL in these two aspects has been taken up.

The three aspects that the 10th Congress and the Salkia Plenum emphasised for going ahead: (i) building of huge class and mass organisations encompassing millions of people (ii) formulation of a political programme, distinct from all bourgeoisie parties and rally people around it and (iii) formation of LDF – all these three require as a pre-condition, an enormous expansion of the CPI(M).

Prakash Karat said that at the time of the 10th Congress in 1978, we had Left front in West Bengal and Tripura and soon after we formed the LDF in Kerala. We stated that this shows the way for the formation of an LDF at the all India level. But even after four decades, we are in the same situation and have made progress only in these three states and not elsewhere. In 1996, another interim front, United Front was formed to keep out the BJP and it collapsed in 1998. In the 16th Congress, the concept of a third alternative came up. From the 16th to the 20th Congress, we pursued the slogan of a third alternative for about a decade and a half. By the 19th Congress, we had exhausted all our energies. We ourselves have pushed the LDF as an alternative to a distant future. In the 20th Congress, it was felt that the third alternative is not feasible, so we dropped it.

In 1996 (United Front government), when we reviewed the election result, the Central Committee stated that we have failed to advance even after fighting the Narasimha Rao government from 1991 to 1995. For the first time, the BJP emerged as a force and the Left and Democratic forces received a set-back. Therefore, we need to examine our PTL and the CC noted that despite our fight, we did not advance, but the BJP advanced. But we could not undertake this review. In 1998 also we could not find time to do so.

Prakash Karat said that in the 17th Congress, we felt that we should at least review our working with secular bourgeoisie parties and noted that there were negative aspects as well as noted by para 18 of the PTL: “The immediate task has been the main preoccupation in practice, leading to the delinking of the immediate political and electoral tasks stemming from the current needs of the situation, from equally important and basic tasks set out in the political tactical line of developing the independent activity of the Party and advancing the struggle of the Left and democratic forces”. Though there was some realization, we could not move ahead.

In India, all the non-Congress, secular bourgeoisie parties are regional and we have been trying to build an alliance with them. The 17th Congress noted the change in the role and character of these regional parties, which represent the regional bourgeoisie. It said that in the era of coalition governments, they are aiming to share power with the union governments, of either the Congress or the BJP. The 17th Congress underlined the political opportunism of these parties. These parties are not the same, as they were 30-40 years ago. With the onset of neo-liberal policies, their outlook itself had changed and their attitude is to utilise neo-liberal policies. It is not just political opportunism, since their class interests are not in conflict with either the BJP or the Congress, they can jump to either side to consolidate their power, noted Prakash Karat.

Rural-rich nexus, which we have to fight is represented by all the regional parties and our constant effort to ally with these parties for elections has retarded our development of the movement and class struggles. Their changing attitude to neo-liberal policies has made them reluctant to join us in movements and struggles and this is an important factor, why our independent strength has not developed. This review notes that the pursuit of “this quest has been fruitless and detracted from the focus on developing the independent strength of the Party based on developing movements and struggles, at times underplaying the priority of fighting against the neo-liberal policies of successive governments.” They have grown at our expense. So what is the united front for? United front tactics are essential. For a Communist Party, the united front means, joint struggles and movements to access their mass base. This won’t happen in neo-liberal regime. The regional parties are interested only in elections. The inherent defect in our line was that we could not attack the politics and policies of these parties and therefore the people could not identify us as being different from the other bourgeoisie parties with which we are allying with.

From the 14th Congress to now, the Party membership has doubled. So also is the membership of the mass organisations. But this growth is not reflected in the mass base, in the independent strength and in the electoral performance of the Party. The set-back in West Bengal has sharply brought this question into focus. The important reasons for this lack of growth are not just organisational issues. We have not been coping with the serious changes brought about by the neo-liberal policies and have dealt with them in piece-meal fashion. The nature of changes in class differentiation has not been comprehended and there is a lag in our approach to reach people and this reflects this. We did not sufficiently take up all India struggles and programmes. We are grappling with the neo-liberal policy regime. Land acquisition in West Bengal cost us heavily as it was viewed that we helped in the land grab for corporates.

We also looked at the implementation of the PTL and noted some of the lapses, where we have moved closer to the Congress party. The rise of the BJP was sought to be cut through rallying the non-BJP parties and pursuing electoral tactics to defeat BJP. This is necessary, but it does not really address the issue. The RSS is everywhere present, running over one lakh educational institutions, trying to rope in dalits, tribals. They have a strategic plan. We have not done much to counter their ideology and work in the social sphere.

The disease of parliamentarianism leads to a reformist outlook, which confines us to electoral work and neglects Party building and mass fronts. This gained, as our LDF got relegated, noted Prakash Karat.

The Report on the pre-Congress amendments was placed after this introduction. The Report was made after processing all the amendments received from Party members and Party units on the Draft Review of the Political-Tactical line. Altogether 1432 amendments and 136 suggestions were received. Out of these, 29 amendments were accepted. The discussion on the Draft Review Report on the PTL concluded in the evening session of April 15. Altogether 42 delegates participated in the discussion. On April 16, Prakash Karat replied to the discussions. 229 amendments had been moved by the delegates to the Report. Of these 11 amendments were accepted. The Review Report was adopted by the Congress on April 16.