Communist Party of India (Marxist)

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) separated from the Communist Party of India (KPI) in 1964 , shortly after the 1962 Indo-Chinese armed conflict . This war, superimposed on the consequences of the Sino-Soviet split in the world communist movement, led to the disruption of the fragile balance between the pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet wing of the KPI, which was maintained during the life of the centrist secretary general Ajoy Kumar Ghosh , who was trying to reconcile both sides.

After the death of the latter in April 1962, the "pro-Soviet" Sripad Amrit Dange became the chairman of the National Council of the KPI, and the moderate Maoist Elamkulath Mana Sankaran Nambudiripad became general secretary. This, however, did not stop the centrifugal tendencies - although the majority at the plenum of the KPI National Council was behind the pro-Chinese wing, its representatives were expelled from the party at the Seventh KPI Congress in Calcutta (October 31 - November 7, 1964).

The first general secretary of the new Communist Party of India (Marxist) was elected Puchalapalli Sundaraya, the hero of the anti-feudal peasant uprising of 1946-1951 in Tellingan . The party’s leadership also included politicians such as Harkishan Singh Surjit from Punjab and E. M. Sh. Nambudiripad from Kerala.

The breakaway Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the end turned out to be stronger both in the number of members and in the election results. However, at first she acted in extremely adverse conditions - by the end of 1964, about a thousand of its members were arrested. The numerous strikes ( bandhas and hartals ) announced by the KPI (M) in 1965-1966 faced police violence and casualties.

Members of the newly created party accused the KPI leadership of “ revisionism ”, in particular, criticized its installation on the “non-capitalist path of development” of India and the government of “national democracy”. In contrast, the KPI (M) proclaimed its goal the formation of a "left-democratic front" and the construction of a "people's democracy" according to Mao Zedong . Thus, unlike the KPI, which was oriented toward the USSR and the CPSU , the KPI (M) was more oriented toward the PRC . However, relations with the Chinese Communist Party and its satellites (such as the Albanian Party of Labor and the Communist Party of New Zealand ) at the KPI (M) began to deteriorate already in 1966, when it decided to maintain wide electoral alliances with all non-opposition opposition parties in West Bengal .

Moreover, in the state of West Bengal, the Communists, who experienced strong Maoist influence, believed that a direct peasant armed uprising would lead to socialism . In March 1967, an uprising of the villagers of Naxalbari began , supported by the left wing of the KPI (M) led by Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal : 150 members of the Communist Party of India seized all the grain of the local landowner ^[1] . According to the name of this area, the Indian Maoist rebels began to be called naxalites . Similar speeches began in other parts of India, for example, in the state of Andhra Pradesh under the leadership of a local deputy from the KPI (M) T.N. Reddy.

The Chinese Communist Party welcomed the peasant uprising as the beginning of the revolutionary process, but the leadership of the KPI (M) itself dissociated itself from the radical elements. In 1967-1968, they separated into the All-India Coordinating Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. In 1969, the radical wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) finally left the party and created the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) . The latter, in turn, could not maintain unity and broke up into a large number of armed groups waging an armed struggle with the government.

KPI (M), while remaining within the framework of the rule of law and the parliamentary process, gradually became the strongest party of the legal opposition - the KPI, becoming the satellite of the Indian National Congress (it was the only party that supported the declaration of a state of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975-1977 - at that time as the KPI (M) didn’t even nominate candidates in the same districts as Janata Party , so as not to split the opposition of the INC, it lost its influence and lost the KPI (M).

Since the intensity of the debate between the two parties decreased in the late 1970s, their rapprochement began: KPI began to act as a junior partner in the left fronts led by the KPI (M). E. M. Sh. Nambudiripad, already as the leader of the local Communist Party (Marxist), returned to the post of Prime Minister of Kerala in 1967 at the head of the Government of the United Front (which also included the KPI, Muslim League, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Kerala Socialist Party and Karshak party). In the national parliamentary elections of 1980, 1984, 1989 and 1991, the party received 64 or 63 seats, and in 1996 - as many as 75. After those elections, the KPI (M) and KPI took part in the United Front, which formed the government offices of India in 1996-1998 years.

Despite the fact that KPI (M) is a national party, it is represented (as of 2019) in the legislative assemblies of 8 states and has strong positions in only three of them - West Bengal , Kerala and Tripura . The governments of these states are often formed by the KPI (M) (in coalitions with other left parties called the Left Front or Left Democratic Front in Kerala). Since 2016, the LDF has been in power in Kerala, and Pinaray Vijayan, a member of the Politburo of the KPI (M), has been the chief minister of the state. Less significant are the successes of the KPI (M) in Tamil Nadu , Andhra Pradesh , Bihar and Jharkhand .

In the states where KPI (M) was in power, it carried out important social reforms, including solving the land issue in favor of the peasants, industrialization, and literacy campaigns, but has also been criticized in recent decades for adopting a neoliberal economic course.

Following the 2004 parliamentary elections, KPI (M) became, with 43 seats, the third largest party in Lok Sabha after the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Parti (BJP) ; the left-wing parties had a total of 59 mandates and supported the United Progressive Alliance government from outside (the support of the Communists played a decisive role in the stability of the Indian government), which were withdrawn in July 2008 due to a nuclear deal between India and the United States ^[2] . The speaker of the Lok Sabhi was a member of the KPI (M) Somnath Chatterjee .

In the 2009 parliamentary elections, KPI (M) received 16 seats in Lok Sabha.

In the 2014 parliamentary elections, KPI (M) won 3.2% of the vote and received 9 seats in the Lok Sabha.

KPI (M) controls a number of mass organizations, including the Federation of Democratic Youth of India, the Federation of Students of India, the Center of Indian Trade Unions, the All-India Union of Agricultural Workers, the All-Indian Kisan Sabha Peasant Front, the All-India Democratic Women's Association and the Banking Federation of India, as well as a number of Adivasi movements.

• 7th Congress - October 31 - November 7, 1964, Calcutta ;
• 8th Congress - December 23–29, 1968, Cochin ;
• 9th Congress - June 27 - July 2, 1972, Madurai ;
• 10th Congress - April 2-8, 1978, Jallandhar ;
• 11th Congress - January 26–31, 1982, Vijayavada ;
• 12th Congress - December 25-29, 1985, Calcutta;
• 13th Congress - December 27, 1988 - January 1, 1989, Thiruvananthapuram ;
• 14th Congress - January 3–9, 1992, Madras ;
• 15th Congress - April 3–8, 1995, Chandigarh ;
• 16th Congress - October 5-11, 1998, Calcutta;
• 17th Congress - March 19-24, 2002, Hyderabad ;
• 18th Congress - April 6-11, 2005, New Delhi ;
• 19th Congress - March 29 - April 3, 2008, Coimbatore ;
• 20th Congress - April 4–9, 2012, Kozhikode ;
• 21st Congress - April 14-19, 2015, Visakhapatnam .

• Puchalapalli Sundaraya (1964-1976)
• E. M. Sh. Nambudiripad (1977-1992)
• H.S. Surjit (1992-2005)
• Prakash Karat (2005—2015)
• Sitaru Yechuri (since 2015)

• Captain lakshmi
• Kamal Basu
• Jotirmayi Sikdar
• Somnath Chatterjee
• Prakash Karat