THE Central Committee elected at the 21st Congress of the Party met at AK Gopalan Bhawan, New Delhi for the first time on June 6-7, 2015 to discuss and carry forward the implementation of the main thrust of the 21st Congress. Both the main documents adopted at the 21st Congress, the `Review Report on the Political-Tactical Line’ and the `Political Resolution’ focused on one important task before the Party. This task is the urgent need to work towards expanding the independent strength of the Party and the class and mass fronts. This is the central task upon which all other crucial decisions taken at the 21st Congress are dependent upon. BUILD CPI(M)’S INDEPENDENT STRENGTH The independent growth of the Party is essential to advance the struggle for forging the Left and democratic front, a prerequisite for the advance of our strategic goal: formation of the People’s Democratic Front and successfully completing the democratic stage of the Indian Revolution by establishing the People’s Democratic State. The 21st Congress, hence, emphasized the restoration of the primacy of forging the Left and democratic front as the focus of our future activities. Building the independent strength of the CPI(M), simultaneously forging stronger unity of Left parties and forces in struggles is the path we need to pursue towards forming the LDF. Crucial to the growth of the independent strength of the Party is to vastly expand our capacities for increased and effective popular interventions and developing mass movements on a much larger scale. The opportunities to do this are growing by the day with the current BJP government at the centre aggressively pursuing the neo-liberal economic reforms imposing greater burdens on the vast mass of our people. Further, the struggles against the activities patronised by this BJP-led government to sharpen communal polarisation will enlarge in the coming days, expanding avenues for mobilising larger sections of secular-minded people. On all such issues, the Party should be in the forefront to organise and lead popular protests in defence of people’s democratic rights and fundamental equality as enshrined in our Constitution. This is the only manner in which we can move towards strengthening the independent capacities for political interventions by the CPI(M). It is only by vitalising the Party to launch such struggles can our 21st Congress decisions be advanced. In order to achieve this, we need to build the internal strength of the Party to launch such people’s struggles by vastly improving and strengthening the Party organisation. This is vital for deepening the Party’s links with the toiling people in our country. Only in this manner can we sharpen the Party’s capacities to mobilise these sections in larger and effective people’s movements and struggles. We had repeatedly noted in our earlier Congresses that despite our advances as an important political force in the country since the 10th Congress at Jallandhar, our independent strength has not grown as we anticipated. Our independent strength is critical to change the political correlation of class forces amongst the Indian people and, on this basis, advance towards the building of a Left and democratic front. PROTEST MOVEMENTS Keeping this in mind, the Central Committee decided to observe a countrywide protest fortnight from August 1-14. This campaign will focus on issues connected with the deepening of the agrarian distress in our country. The details of this were analysed in the Party Congress resolutions and subsequent Party documents. Suffice to say, in independent India, the crisis in Indian agriculture adversely affecting nearly two-thirds of our population living in rural areas had never been so acute. The distress suicides among our peasantry have escalated sharply during the first year of this BJP-led government. The Central Committee, therefore, decided that the focus of this fortnight of protests would be to rally the people in all local areas on issues connected with the agrarian distress and launch popular protests. The issues upon which such protests are launched will, naturally, vary from state to state and between various regions within the state. The Party committees must identify the most pressing issues in their localities and launch movements centering upon such demands. In this context, it is necessary to underline that the CPI(M) Programme characterises the agrarian revolution as the axis of the People’s Democratic Revolution. Such struggles as these are the foundations upon which the forward movement towards forging the unity in struggles amongst the most exploited sections in the agricultural sector – poor peasants and agricultural labour – rests. It is on the basis of this strength that we can move towards forging the worker-peasant alliance and strengthening the Left and Democratic Front and carry forward the revolutionary struggles in the future. Along with this, the issue of the sharp decline in the rural employment opportunities under the MGNREGA must be taken up demanding effective implementation and greater financial allocations for this by the central government. And, at the same time, Party should focus on the sharp deterioration in the public distribution system, part of a design of this BJP government to move towards the dismantling of the PDS. On the contrary, the strengthening of the PDS is vital to implement the food security commitments, however limiting they are, of the Central Food Security legislation. Both these issues, along with issues connected with agrarian distress, must be taken up at the local levels to successfully observe this protest fortnight. Simultaneously, the Central Committee decided that the CPI(M) will extend its complete support to make the ongoing struggle by Central Kisan Sabhas and various other social movements and organisations against the proposed amendments to the Land Acquisition Act a success. These anti-kisan and anti-agriculture amendments favouring the maximisation of profit by international and domestic capital are being aggressively pressed forward by the BJP government which has issued another ordinance, for an unprecedented third time, to legalise these amendments. At another level, all Central Trade Unions have given a call for a nationwide strike by the working class on September 2 against this BJP government’s moves to amend the labour laws and other anti-labour proposals, openly favouring, again, the maximisation of profits by foreign and domestic capital. The Central Committee decided to extend its full support to all activities undertaken unitedly by the Central Trade Unions towards making the September 2 strike a big success and this should be part of the August fortnight campaign. During this period, the Central Committee decided that Party’s mass fronts like those amongst the women, youth, students etc, should intensify the struggles on issues of their concern and against the growing attacks by this BJP government on their existing democratic rights. These struggles will complement the struggles of the working class and the peasantry, and at the same time, the Party’s call of a protest fortnight. All these struggles must converge to strengthen people’s interventions against the anti-people policies of this BJP government. The successful implementation of these programmes will lead to the beginning of the process of enhancing the independent strength of the CPI(M) and move towards meeting the tasks we set out for ourselves in our 21st Party Congress. PARTY PLENUM ON ORGANISATION This Central Committee meeting began the implementation of the Party Congress directive to convene an Organisational Plenum before the end of 2015. The Central Committee decided that this Plenum should be held in Kolkata preferably in November. The exact dates, however, would be finalised later depending on the political developments. In order to hold this Plenum successfully, the Central Committee entrusted the Polit Bureau to prepare a detailed questionnaire on organisational matters to be sent to the Party state committees by June end. Upon receipt of replies to this by August 15, the Polit Bureau will prepare a draft report for the Organisational Plenum. The PB will meet in September and the Central Committee in October to finalise this draft. This draft report will be sent to the state committees for a discussion. To consider the opinions returned by the state committees on this report, the PB and CC will meet before the Plenum and finalise the Report on Organisation for the consideration of the Plenum. This is the manner in which the Central Committee plans to implement the important decision of the 21st Congress for improving and strengthening the Party organisation, our basic weapon to strengthen the Party’s links with the vast mass of the exploited people in our country and, thus, enhance the Party’s capacities to launch more powerful movements. On this basis alone, can the independent strength of the Party grow. As noted earlier, this is the most crucial element to move towards changing the political correlation of class forces amongst the Indian people in our favour. The entire Party must now rally together to carry forward these two important decisions taken by the Central Committee. It is only through the successful implementation of these that we can move towards the effective implementation of the decisions we have taken at our 21st Congress.