WITH Bay of Bengal to their side, a vast sea of humanity, consisting of workers, peasants and other toiling people, marched on the adjacent beach road of Visakhapatnam, braving the hot sun to participate in the huge public meeting, marking the culmination of the 21st Congress of the CPI(M).Women, children, youngsters, tribals, dalits joined the multitudes who have come from far off places to hear the leaders speak and learn from them about the decisions of the 21st Congress, for whose success all of them had contributed to the best of their abilities.

The following is the speech delivered by P Madhu, chairman of the Reception Committee at the inaugural session of the Party Congress on April 14.

The Central Committee of Communist Party of India (Marxist) while reviewing the Lok Sabha results observed that there is decline in the mass base of the Party and the Party had failed to expand its political influence and increase its organizational strength. In order to find out the reasons for the present situation, the CC had decided to review the political-tactical line Party has been pursuing, to study the changes in the socio-economic conditions since liberalization and their impact on various classes and to review the functioning of the Party organization and mass fronts.

AT its 21st Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) redoubled its resolve for strengthening the Party, the class and mass organisations and unleashing powerful people’s struggles for forging the Left and democratic front, based on a programmatic alternative to the current policies being pursued by the Indian ruling classes, with the eventual aim of replacing the bourgeois-landlord class rule by the People’s Democratic Front led by the working class.

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on April 9 has condemned the barbaric killings of 20 labourers in the Seshachalam forest in Andhra Pradesh by the Andhra Pradesh police on April 7, in the name of encounter with sandal-wood smugglers. The CITU has called upon the workers and the trade unions to raise their voice of protest against the police-brutality.According to the information and reports pouring in the media, the so-called encounter is a completely fake one.