After the electoral rout, an ideological shift. The CPI(M), which has been pro-China ever since it was formed (out of the undivided CPI) in the 1960s, has openly criticised the Communist giant for the first time.
In an “ideological document”, the party hit out at financial reforms and the growing corruption in China, saying it would consider the “concrete conditions” in that country and lessons from the recent “anti-imperialist” developments in Latin America.
A debate has been raging within the CPI(M) on whether it should emulate the Chinese model of socialism for the past several months. Poll debacles and the party’s deteriorating political fortunes has virtually forced Mr Prakash Karat’s party to dump the idea of following the Chinese model completely and work to establishing “socialism in the Indian context”.
The document states “new problems and disturbing trends” are cropping up in China like “growing inequalities, unemployment and corruption”, which are “alien to socialism”. It says the Chinese Communist Party has concluded “socialism itself could be under threat” in China if these “contradictions are not resolved”.
The CPI(M)’s own obsession with economic refor-ms and failed efforts to cobble up a Third Front in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections is also under the scanner.
The document says there is a need to take up issues like caste discrimination, social oppression, class exploitation, communalism, gender issues and nationalism along with economic struggles. “We need to combine caste, class, religious struggles... Ecomonic struggles and social oppression issues (must) be taken up together... These are like two feet; without raising both, we cannot even stand, forget walking,” said politburo member Sitaram Yechury. Mr Yechury went on to note that “problems are emerging in China leading to adverse political and social relations. The future of China depends on how they resolve these conflicts. We have to see whether socialism will get stronger or weaker.”