Two years after the formation of
the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR)
in May 1968 and a year after the foundation of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
in April 1969, the first congress was held secretly on 15-16 May at Kolkata.
A 21-member central committee was elected, with Comrade Charu Mazumdar as
General Secretary. The congress adopted a General Programme and a Political
Organisational Report and called upon the Party ranks to intensify and expand
armed peasant struggle.
In
a situation of total ideological confusion following the setback and fragmentation
suffered by the Party in 1971-72, a new central committee was formed on 28
July 1974, the second anniversary of Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s martyrdom.
It consisted of comrades Jauhar (Subrata Dutta), secretary of the reorganised
Bihar State Committee, who was now elected General Secretary, Vinod Mishra,
secretary of the newly formed West Bengal State Leading Team; and Raghu (Swadesh
Bhattacharya), a close associate of Jauhar. The Central Committee vowed to
unite all communist revolutionaries of India on the basis of the revolutionary
essence of the political line formulated by Comrade Charu Mazumdar.
Comrade
Jauhar was martyred on 29 November 1975 and Comrade Vinod Mishra took over
as General Secretary. He took the initiative to hold a party congress as early
as possible, which took place on 26-27 February 1976 in Gaya district in Bihar.
It elected a 11-member central committee with Comrade VM as General Secretary
and maintained the stress on armed guerrilla struggle. It also introduced
the concept of an anti-Congress united front but did not elaborate on the
required political tactics.
Held
in Giridih district of Bihar (now Jharkhand) from 26 to 30 December, the third
congress made a self-critical assessment of the Party’s formative years
while firmly upholding the fine revolutionary traditions. It adopted, for
the first time in CPI(ML) history, a separate Agrarian Programme in addition
to the General Programme, Constitution and Political Organisational Report,
and decided upon participation in elections under IPF banner on condition
that parliamentary struggle must be subordinated to extra-parliamentary movement
with peasants’ resistance struggle as the key link. Understandably,
this decision was taken only after an intense debate at all levels of the
Party prior to and at the congress itself. A central committee comprising
17 full and 8 alternative members was elected.
The fourth
congress held in Hazaribagh district of Bihar (now Jharkhand) from January
1 to 5, 1988 elected a 21-member central committee and a 3-member central
control commission. In this congress we abandoned certain wrong concepts like
viewing the Soviet Union as social-imperialism while condemning Gorbachev’s
theory of peaceful imperialism, and gave out the solgan of Left and Democratic
Confederation. The way for our interaction with the mainstream of the left
movement was thus paved. Also the congress decided to initiate the process
of opening up a section of Party which was implemented in the form of appointing
spokespersons at central and lower levels. Soon after the congress, the Party
had to launch a vigorous ideological campaign against a trend of liquidationist
renegacy which sought to obliterate our fundamental differences with the opportunist
Left. The whole Party rallied unitedly in this struggle to defend Marxism
and to reiterate three cardinal principles: primacy of revolutionary peasant
struggle in our multifarious activities; relentless fight against parliamentary
opportunism and social-democracy; absolute political independence and leading
role of the communist party in the democratic revolution. With higher ideological-political
and organisational consolidation, the Party achieved new breakthrough on the
peasant front and was able to send its representatives to the Lok Sabha (from
Arrah, Bihar) and to the Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1989-90.
The
next major step in this direction of opening up and restructuring was the
holding of the next party congress openly in Kolkata on 20-26 December, followed
by a massive Party rally on the Brigade Parade Ground on 28 December, where
Comrade Vinod Mishra made his first public appearance after more than two
decades of underground operation. The congress called for militant mass resistance
to communal fascism under united Left leadership, reiterated the slogan of
Left Confederation and boldly put forward the perspective of uniting all Indian
communists in a single Party. A 17-member central committee (after a few months
8 more members were coopted) and a 3-member central control commission were
elected.
To further streamline
and systematise the Party’s structure and functioning, a special organisational
conference – the first of its kind in our history – was organised
in Diphu, Karbi Anglong (Assam) on 28 and 29 July, 1995. It discussed, and
adopted specific decisions on a wide range of matters like raising the membership
strength and overcoming imbalances like low proportion of women in the membership
and in Party committees, strengthening party propaganda and education, freshly
developing a small underground structure in the midst of open party functioning
and so on. According to a decision adopted at the plenum, the Indian Institute
of Marxist Studies (IIMS) was founded to propagate Marxism and to facilitate
organised interaction with Marxist and progressive intellectuals.
Held
in Varanasi – one of the main bastions of communal fascism – from
20 to 25 October 1997, the sixth congress made an observation that was soon
to prove prophetic: “the Indian ruling establishment is all set to welcome
a BJP takeover by the next elections, if not earlier.” The congress
therefore gave out the clarion call of resolute resistance to the saffron
menace. A 39-member central committee and a 5-member central control commission
were elected. As in all the previous congresses since the second (1976), Comrade
Vinod Mishra was reelected General Secretary.