Kozhikode:
There are two days left of the CPM congress at Kozhikode. But a section of delegates are disappointed that no clear direction is being provided by the party leadership. And a senior leader contradicting themselves, has not helped either.
On the penultimate day of the party congress today, the CPM will discuss the political organisational report.
That crucial report was placed before the party yesterday. But a large section of party delegates says the organisational report and the ideological report don't quite inspire. Some are asking: will the exercise change anything on the ground?
- The ideological document does not quite set out a direction for Indian communists to take.
- The organizational report too doesn't offer any concrete roadmap for the future.
- Almost repeats points made in the last party congress in 2008
The CPM has faced tumultuous setbacks in the last four year, and after the Bengal rout last year, there is now a sense of urgency among comrades to recover lost ground. But the party documents have failed to inspire. And on top of it, senior leaders can't quite explain: who should be accountable for the party's downslide?
When asked the question, Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said, "We will sink or swim together. But the Marxist organisational convention is collective functioning and individual responsibility. There is nothing called collective responsibility. Collective functioning and individual responsibility, that is the Leninist term to describe it."
When asked again, who is responsible for the setbacks the party had suffered, he went on to say, "Everything that happens in the party, as a member of the politburo, I am also responsible, whether I do it or not do it, I don't run away from that. That is the difference between bourgeois party and communist party. So we all take the collective responsibility for our achievements. We take collective responsibility, but individual accountability will be there in the party."
The contradiction: Is responsibility collective or individual?
So four days after the CPM meet got off to an energetic start, the party is yet to give clear answers.