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Marxists plan special meet from Friday

The Communist Party of India-Marxist is trying to adjust its programmes to suit the day-to-day power politics. The party's four-day special conference, beginning at Trivandrum on Friday, is being seen as a significant exercise.

The conference will adopt the revised programme, which the CPI-M claims will reflect the needs of changing times. It will take up 200 amendments to a draft revised programme. The amendments were approved from among 4000 received from party workers by the politburo and the central committee.

The revision, being undertaken after 36 years, is considered significant in view of political and economic changes at the national and international levels. The conference, being attended by 400 delegates from all over the country, will make the party's approach to economic issues such as foreign capital, economic reforms, caste, religion and parliamentary politics clear.

The draft programme, discussed at lower levels of the party, contains a proposal to share power at the Centre, which was rejected by the last CPI-M congress at Calcutta. The fresh proposal envisages that the party join a government at the Centre even if it does not have a decisive say on formulation of policies and programmes.

Political analysts feel that this can prove decisive even in the present political context since the CPI-M is the third largest single party in the Lok Sabha. This will enable the party to join a political combination of sufficient strength to pull down the Vajpayee government and hoist an alternative government.

The proposal is likely to get the approval of delegates since the politburo and central committee have already approved it. The two highest forums of the party justify the stand as it will help the party grow, as in West Bengal. Besides, the party thinks that it will help it bring relief to people hit by wrong policies.

The conference is not likely to make any fundamental change in its economic policy. The party will stick to its 1991 policy of selective foreign investment while opposing liberalisation and economic reforms, according to Kerala Chief Minister E K Nayanar, who is chairman of the reception committee for the special conference.

Nayanar said that the draft programme envisages foreign investment only if it contributes to technological upgradation. The party would not allow multinationals to destroy the domestic industry and state institutions, he added.

Critics of the party do not expect anything tangible from the conference. In fact, some view the conference as being 36 years after a similar exercise at Thenali as an attempt to cast away vestiges of the revolutionary party. The Thenali conference, held after the split in the Communist Party, had adopted 'people's democracy'.

"The salvation of the CPI-M as a revolutionary party lies in the unlikely event of the programme getting rejected by the conference," says K Vijayachandran, who was expelled from the party for associating with the Save CPI-M Forum, an outfit formed to ventilate differences with the party leadership.

He said that senior leaders, obsessed with power, were trying to wield power at the Centre through modifying the programme.

"The draft language is typical double-speak of the 21st century liberal bourgeoisie," he added.

Another CPI-M watcher says that the conference would further erode its core values. He said that the revision of the programme was aimed at avoiding the embarrassment of day-to-day politics.

The conference will feel the absence of veteran E M S Nampoodiripad, who had attributed ills plaguing the party to parliamentary illusions of party leaders.

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