Party Programme

Communist Party of India(Marxist)
The CPI(M) combines the fine heritage of the anti-imperialist struggle and the revolutionary legacy of the undivided Communist Party which was founded in 1920

Party Structure

Party Constitution

Programme

Resolutions

Mass Organisations

Publications

Elections

State Government

The CPI(M) programme was adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of India held at Calcutta between October 31 and November 7, 1964. It is at this Congress that the CPI(M) was formed. The CPI(M) considers itself the inheritor of the finest traditions of the communist movement in the country. The name of the Party mentioned in the programme at various places is Communist Party of India.

Presently, the CPI(M) is in the process of updating its Programme. A Programme Commission has been constituted by the Party which will be preparing a draft for finalisation.

The present Indian state is the organ of the class rule of the bourgeoisie and landlord, led by the big bourgeoisie, who are increasingly collaborating with foreign finance capital in pursuit of the capitalist path of development. This class character essentially determines the role and functions of the state in the life of the country.

Although our state structure is supposed to be a federal one, practically all power and authority is concentrated in the central government. The constituent states of Indian Union enjoy very limited power and opportunities; their autonomy is formal. This makes these states precariously dependent on the central government, restricts their development and other nation building activities and thus hinders their progress.

As a result of the anti-people policies pursued by the government, the vast masses of the people are fleeced by soaring prices, rising taxes and reckless inflation. At one end, while a microscopic few of the top exploiting classes and their hangers-on with their newly earned riches are rolling in luxury, at the other end, millions are groaning under squalor and poverty. The conflicts and contradictions between the people on the one hand and the bourgeois-landlord government led by the big bourgeoisie on the other are steadily getting intensified.

Capitalist development in India, however, is not of the type which took place in western Europe and other advanced capitalist countries. Even though developing in the capitalist way Indian society still contains within itself strong elements of pre-capitalist society. Unlike in the advanced capitalist countries where capitalism grew on the ashes of pre-capitalist society, destroyed by the rising bourgeoisie, capitalism in India was superimposed on pre-capitalist society. Neither the British colonialists whose rule continued for over a century; nor the Indian bourgeoisie into whose hands power passed in 1947, delivered those smashing blows against pre-capitalist society which are necessary for the free development of capitalist society and its replacement by socialist society. The present Indian society, therefore, is a peculiar combination of monopoly capitalist domination with caste, communal and tribal institutions. It has thus fallen to the lot of the working class and its Party to unite all the progressive forces interested in destroying the pre-capitalist society and to so consolidate the revolutionary forces within it as to facilitate the most rapid completion of the democratic revolution and preparation of the ground for transition to socialism.

While adhering to the aim of building a socialist society, the Communist Party of India, taking into consideration the degree of economic development, the degree of the political-ideological maturity of the working class and its organisation, places before the people as the immediate objective the establishment of people's democracy based on the coalition of all genuine anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces headed by the working class. This demands first and foremost the replacement of the present bourgeois-landlord state and government by a state of people's democracy and a government led by the working class on the basis of a firm worker-peasant alliance. This alone can quickly and thoroughly complete the unfinished basic democratic tasks of the Indian revolution and pave the way to putting the country on the road of socialism.

The core and the basis of the people's democratic front is the firm alliance of the working class and the peasantry. It is this alliance that constitutes the most important force in defending national independence, accomplishing far-reaching democratic transformation and ensuring all-round social progress. Further, it should be noted that the extent to which the different sections of the national bourgeoisie participate in carrying out the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist tasks also depends to no small degree on the strength and stability of the workers' and peasants' alliance. In short, the success or otherwise of building the broad people's democratic front to lead the revolution to victory hinges upon forging the unshakable worker-peasant alliance.