Centenary of the First Communist Conference in India
Defeat Anti-communist propaganda of Fascist Rulers
Build People’s Struggles to advance revolutionary
movement towards victory!
Date: December 24, 2025 Venue: Subodh Mullick Square,
Kolkata
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People’s upsurge in India against colonial rule after the
First World War created the fertile ground in which the message of the Great
October Socialist Revolution in Russia reverberated in India. The Communist
movement was born with Marxism-Leninism as its guide and workers & peasants
as the main forces for achieving independence from colonial rule and an egalitarian
society in India. Terrified by the entry of this new force in the milieu of
already growing anti-colonial struggle, colonial rulers hounded the communists
and foisted the Peshawar conspiracy cases and the Kanpur conspiracy case. In
this backdrop First communist conference was held on December 26, 27, 28 in
1925, in the city of Kanpur in UP, in which communist organizations working in
different centers participated- those working in UP, Bengal, Bombay, Madras,
and Lahore.
During the hundred years since this Conference, hundreds of
thousands of communists devoted themselves to the cause of the toiling
sections- workers and peasants, fought for independence of the country, and
waged revolutionary struggles, including armed struggle to free the people of
the country from the yoke of colonialism and feudalism subservient to it. A
large number of communists, men and women, young and old, made the supreme
sacrifice of their lives, dying at the gallows, in encounters, and in jails;
braved the atrocities of the rulers, including long jail sentences, and endured
countless hardships to advance the cause of revolution in India. They organized
workers’ strikes, peasant struggles, including revolutionary struggles,
organized tribals and Dalits, and built movements of students, youth, and
women; fought for democratic rights of the people, including rights of
oppressed nationalities occupying front rows in struggles of the Indian people.
In the colonial period, continuous agitation of communists
helped bring the demand for complete independence to the agenda of the freedom
movement, including that of the Indian National Congress. Struggles of workers
forced colonial rulers to make several labour laws, while peasant struggles for
which communists worked brought the land question to the national agenda. The
influence of communists led to many progressive changes in society and which the
ruling classes were also forced to recognize.
Communists in India
built countless struggles of the oppressed. Sholapur commune, though short-lived,
was an important intervention of the working class in the freedom movement.
Notable among peasant struggles were of Tebhaga, Punnapra-Vayalar, Worli, the glorious
Telangana armed struggle, and the struggle in PEPSU. It is these struggles that
forced the Congress Government to usher in the first round of land reforms.
These led to the elimination of multiple layers of intermediaries. Later Land
Ceiling Acts were passed by state governments, but these measures did not solve
the land question. These struggles also led to the Bhoodan movement by Vinoba
Bhave to contain the land struggles of the peasantry. Pressure of these
movements was one of the important factors that compelled British colonial
rulers to transfer power, changing India from a colony to a semi-colony.
The Communist movement in India not only faced repression
from enemies but also obstacles placed by those who embraced revisionism,
abandoning revolutionary Marxism. The Communist movement in India also had to
struggle against the impact of modern revisionism. In this period, the communist
movement was reorganized twice, and in the second reorganization, after the Naxalbari
peasant armed struggle, CPI (ML) was formed. The revolutionary struggles of the
people, especially the peasantry, were advanced later by communist
revolutionaries. Armed uprisings followed Naxalbari, an armed uprising in
Mushahari, Debra, Gopiballabhpur, Lakhimpur Khiri, and Srikakulam, and some
other revolts of peasants, a stream which has continued in the form of attempts
to wage armed struggle, including resistance struggles in different parts of
India.
It is these struggles initiated with Naxalbari that forced
the Government to usher in the second round of land reforms, leading to the formulation
of a uniform policy on the ceiling on ownership of agricultural land according
to the quality of land. Struggles of communist revolutionaries led to the occupation
of lakhs of acres of land by tribals, forest areas, and landless poor peasants,
mostly from Dalits and oppressed castes in plain areas. These struggles forced
state governments to prohibit alienation of tribal lands. Communist
revolutionaries are a continuation of the communist movement in India, building
struggles against different types of oppression and opposing reactionary ideas
and offensive. Communist revolutionaries thwarted attempts to evict tribals
from the forest in the name of conservation and built struggles against the forcible
displacement of tribals to hand over their land to corporations.
While people of the country have been struggling against the
exploitation and oppression by the alliance of imperialism, big comprador
capitalists, and big landlords, a major section of the ruling classes has
rallied behind the fascist RSS-BJP, who, with their allies, are ruling at the
Centre and in most of the states and are moving to impose fascist dictatorship
over the country. This has not only intensified exploitation of workers and
peasants, oppression of Dalits, minorities, tribals, and women, but has also jeopardized
the future of students and youth and grossly diluted educational opportunities
and health care facilities for the vast majority of the people, but has also
endangered even the rights which had been won by the toiling people through
their struggles and sacrifices. Fascists wish to do away with existing
democratic rights and whatever rights of tribals, socially oppressed, and
minorities are there in the Constitution. For this, they want to do away with the
present constitution, whatever rights of states are in that, and to achieve
these, they want to control all state institutions, including apex Court,
packing them with RSS nominees.
While a bigger
section of the ruling classes backs the fascist forces, the conditions of the overwhelming
majority of the people are declining and becoming unbearable.
Workers are being robbed of their rights by new Labour
Codes, land reforms are off the agenda, while corporate penetration of
agriculture is increasing and siphoning off the earnings of the peasantry, and tribals
are being forcibly displaced for their land, while all-out attacks are being
made against minorities, especially Muslims, mostly poor peasants and workers.
Their lives, properties, and religious places are being continuously attacked
while their patriotism is regularly questioned. Exploitation and oppression are
being taken to new heights, and rulers are mocking the people by distributing
alarms.
To usher in the fascist state, their Hindu Rashtra, RSS-BJP
are ruthlessly attacking communist revolutionaries, killing them in fake
encounters, denying them democratic rights, declaring that they would eliminate
Naxalites by March 31, 2026. RSS-BJP has launched an all-out attack on
revolutionary Marxism itself, as they consider it the biggest ideological
challenge. Educational institutions are being packed by RSS obscurantists,
critical thinking is being purged from the syllabi, and even slogans like
Inquilab Zindabad and Lal Salam are being criminalized.
We are observing this Centenary at a time when the situation
is full of challenges and opportunities. The imperialist system is plagued by ever-deepening
crisis. Over accumulation of capital and drive to maximize profits, increasing scramble
for natural resources and markets is intensifying contradiction between imperialism
and oppressed countries and peoples, conflict among imperialist powers, and
contradiction between labour and capital in imperialist powers. They are
fanning wars in different parts of the world, wars becoming tools of maximizing
profits. Capital is becoming intolerant of even existing democracy, promoting xenophobia
and racism targeting immigrant workers. Brooking no obstacle ultra-right
sections of the ruling classes are accusing liberals, even fewer rightist
opponents, of being communists. Specter has come once again to haunt them. On
the other hand, workers and other toiling sections are rising in struggles and
protests.
In India also the fascist rulers, RSS-BJP, are launching
attacks against all sections of toilers, targeting minorities, diluting
federalism, monopolizing state institutions even changing the Constitution for
this aim. They are targeting communist revolutionaries, conducting Operation Kagar
to kill leaders and cadres of CPI (Maoist). They are trying to crush all
dissent, branding democratic rights activists as “Urban Naxals”. They are
erasing the rich history of anti-colonial struggles of the people of India and
all cultures of resistance against oppression and exploitation. Struggles of
the toiling sections and unity forged in the course of building these struggles
is the most formidable fort against fascist forces and their drive to impose
fascist dictatorship.
However, so deep is the crisis that imperialism and
reactionaries can have no respite. They are being driven from one crisis to
another, deeper crisis, afraid of the toilers of the world, their grave
diggers. The objective situation is growing increasingly favorable. subjective
forces have to be built.
During its existence communist movement in the country has
faced many challenges, including the present danger of fascist dictatorship. We
have made advances and suffered setbacks, built on positive developments and
drawn lessons from the losses, and have tried and are trying to overcome
weaknesses and shortcomings. We have assessed and accommodated changes in the
international and national situation to advance the revolutionary movement. A
century since the First Communist Conference has been a century of relentless
struggle against rulers as well as of two-line struggle for the correct line to
make revolution in India by waging a protracted people’s war; the struggle for
evolving revolutionary mass line in India is continuing, having built glorious
struggles and having made countless sacrifices.
We observe the Centenary of the First Communist Conference
not only to celebrate a century of struggles and sacrifices but also, and more
importantly, to rededicate ourselves to the victory of the New Democratic
Revolution in India, a part of the world socialist revolution. And for this,
Communist Revolutionaries in India must unite into a single party based on
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, practicing the revolutionary mass line,
integrate ourselves ever closely with the workers and peasants, lead the
struggles of all sections of people, minorities, Dalits, tribals, and women,
and entrench the Party deep in their struggle.
Let the lessons of over a Century of the Communist Movement
in India guide our path to victory and liberate the people of our country from
want and misery; from exploitation and oppression; from the clutches of foreign
and domestic corporate and big landlords.
Central Committee
CPI (ML) - New Democracy.
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