CONGRESS OF REVOLUTIQNARY UNIFICATION The three-day unification conference of the Socialist Party (Marxist), the Mazdoor Communist Party, and the Communist League, to form the Revolutionary Workers' Party of India, took place in Calcutta from May 31st to June 2nd
1958, as a step toward the consolidation of all Marxist forces in India. The conference was attended by delegates of the
United Provinces.
three constituent organizations from Bihar,
Rajasthan, Bombay, Gujrat, Saurastra, Madras, Andhra, and
----- photo credits and running heads -----
*
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL West Bengal. Comrade Kanai Paul of West Bengal opened the conference. A message of greetings wishing success to the conference was received from the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International. The conference discussed, and finally adopted unanimously, the programme, constitution, and statement of policy of the new party; and elected 15-member Central Committee with Comrade Muralidhar Parija (Bombay) as the General Secretary, also a three-member Control Commission. The Programme adopted at the conference laid down the following 15-point transitional demands
1) Confiscation of foreign assets and withdrawal from. the
2) Nationalization without compensation of all key and basic industries, mines, plantations insurance the entire credit system. Monopoly of foreign trade.
3) Workers' control and management of factories.
4) Release of all political prisoners. Repeal of all repressive laws. Freedom of speech, press, and assembly.
5) Stoppage of payment of compensation to the landlords.
6) Liquidation of agricultural indebtedness.
7) Distribution of land--subject to a minimum economic holding of land-to the peasantry, through their own committees. Fixation of a ceiling on land-holding.
9) Introduction of large-scale coöperative farming on a voluntary basis.
10) Jobs for all on the basis of a sliding-scale of working hours.
11) Decent living conditions on the basis of a slidingscale of wages.
12) Social equality for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
13) [text not received]
14) No jingoistic attitude toward Pakistan.
69
15) In the international sector, the fundamental tasks of the party are defined as: a) mobilization of the masses by class actions against imperialist war preparations; b) unreserved support to the national-liberation movements of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin-American countries; c) unconditional defense of the Soviet Union, China, and the Eastern European workers' states against all capitalist attacks; d) complete support to the workers' struggle inside the Soviet-bloc countries against their present bureaucratic regime, for democracy, national equality, and a higher standard of living. The Constitution of the Revolutionary Workers' Party of India will be based on the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. The flag of the Party will be the red flag with crossed hammer and sickle and with a five-cornered star The Statement of Policy analyzed the situation in India since the "Independence Deal" of 1947, and showed that not a single basic problem of the masses has yet been tackled by the Congress government, nor can be solved within the existing capitalist socio-economic framework. It characterized the major Left, such as the PSP, SP (Lohia), and CPI, as basically reformist in outlook and as maior obstacles to the revolutionary mobilization of the masses against capitalism. It defines the foremost organizational task facing the Indian revolutionaries as the unification of all genuine Marxist forces, now lying scattered in the different parts of India, into a single organization, and it expresses the firm conviction that both the objective and subjective factors in the revolutionary process, which are now fast maturing both nationally and internationally, will inexorably drive all these revolutionary forces ultimately to unite. The RWPI will strive to bring about a speedy consummation of this process. *
Japan