COVER FEATURE

Party Foundation Day Reports

Greetings from DSP Australia on Party Foundation Day

To Central Committee
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

Dear Comrades,
Revolutionary greetings on the 38th anniversary of the founding of your party. It was fitting that your party was founded on the date of VI Lenin’s birthday — the lessons and legacy of Comrade Lenin clearly inspires all your work. The lessons of your own struggles in India — your ability to learn from history, to correctly assess the objective conditions, to develop Marxist theory, and apply it in practice – are being highlighted by the events of recent months.
Congratulations on the huge March 23 Inquilab Rally in Delhi. The militants rallying there from all parts of India represent the future of your country. Their role in reaching out to and organising the masses of India in the coming months and years will guarantee the further growth of your party, and the coming overthrow of the ruling class exploiters and ravagers of your country, and the defeat of imperialism on a world scale.
When I had the privilege of attending your 6th Congress 10 years ago in Varanasi, I experienced strong feelings of solidarity and identity with all the comrades I met then. Since then your efforts to provide leadership for the struggles of the workers and peasants in India, and build the revolutionary party that is so necessary for their victory, has continued to encourage us in Australia. May your 8th Congress go forward in charting the course needed to further build the party and your leadership of the people’s struggles.
Lal Salaam to all your martyrs and departed leaders!
Forward in the leadership and organisation of the workers and peasants of India!
Build the CPI ML!

Warmest comradely greetings,
John Percy
National President
DSP Australia

April 22, Comrade Lenin’s Birth Anniversary and the 38th Foundation Day of CPI(ML) was observed all over the country in a variety of ways. In Bihar, General Body meetings were held at around 500 places, right down to the block and village levels, in which around 30, 000 party members participated. They saluted the movement’s martyrs, hoisted the party flag and discussed ways to strengthen the party organisation and rise up to the challenge of upholding Lenin’s legacy and taking the Naxalbari movment ahead to its revolutionary goal. Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar participated in the GB meeting at the District Headquarters at Bhojpur.
GB meetings were held at district and block HQs in West Bengal too. It is customary for Left leaders from all parties to pay respects at Lenin’s statue at Dharmatola. At the statue, CPI(ML) comrades hung a banner with the lines:"Lenin bhumistha rakte, klibatar kache nei wrin - ganahatyar kshama nei, garjay ajuta Lenin" (Lenin lives on/is alive in our blood, we have no debt to impotence - no carnage goes unpunished, roar a million Lenin). When Buddhadeb Bhattacharya came to the statue, he was greeted by the sight of that banner, the first line of which is from a poem by the revolutionary Communist poet Sukanta Bhattacharya (whose legacy his nephew Buddhadeb is in a hurry to shed).

At Rajasthan, GB meetings were held at Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jhunjhunu and Guhana. In Punjab, similar events were held at Mansa, Barnala and Ludhiana. Flag-hoisting programmes were held at the Party Office at Gwalior and also a GB meeting at Abarpura. Party members and supporters gathered to read the April 22 Call and hoist the flag at Rewari, Haryana.

In Tamilnadu, the focus of the April 22 was on forming and activising branches, holding General Body meetings and expanding membership. In Coimbatore, a membership recruitment camp was held; branch conferences at Namakkal; GB meeting at Veppanapalli block in Krishnagiri District in which 60 new party recruits participated; branch conference at Sogathur in Dharmapuri district; Cadre meets at Nagai, Thanjavur, Pudukkottai, Cuddalore, and Trichy discussed the April 22 call and planned for the May 19 anti-SEZ Convention; GB meetings at Nellai, Madurai, Kanyakumari, Trivallore, and Kanchipuram; and a mass meeting at Chennai.