And some of the instructions to the hardened party members sounded pretty basic indeed. Examples: do not hobnob with bourgeois parties (read the Congress), nor accept hospitality or gifts from the affluent and class enemies.

For the grizzled party veterans, there will be more work from now on: they will closely monitor the assets and financial status of members. The renewal of existing membership will be preceded by a scrutiny. Training camps and classes, a much- neglected aspect of the party's functioning, will be strengthened. And local party heads and district secretaries will be answerable for area activities. All very elementary. The fact that battle-hardened cadre have to be reminded of these matters after 32 years of ruling West Bengal says much about the kind of health the party is in.

Commenting recently on the party's plight at a gathering, former Finance Minister Dr Ashok Mitra observed that the origin of the present crisis could be seen three years ago.

Not true. If neglecting the basics contributed to the crisis — as it must have done — matters started deteriorating long ago; it is not exactly a three-year-old problem.

In fact, just after the 1982 State Assembly elections, which the Left Front won in style, there were complaints that ongoing party classes lacked seriousness. This at a time when Jyoti Basu was in full glory and Promode Dasgupta was the State Secretary. The CPI(M) may be facing its worst crisis since 1964, but the rot started setting in much, much earlier. As a team of bright, rising cadre in those days, Karat and his colleagues are not in a position to claim that they did not know what was going on.

In the present situation, where a rampaging Trinamool Congress is using every trick in the book to dislodge the Left Front from power, Karat's prescription remains too doctrinaire, too text- bookish. The buzz among some disillusioned members, who are facing a tough time in their constituencies and strongholds, is that what they got was a “moral lecture” on how to conduct themselves — good up to a point, but not much use in the rough and tumble of present-day West Bengal politics.

In brief, the formula from Mr. Karat was that partymen must remain patient. They must aggressively counter any lawlessness and expose the nexus between the Trinamool Congress and the Maoists. The party would launch an all India campaign on this issue. They must not resort to violence. They should step up class struggle, launching mass movements against price rise, communalism and US imperialist designs. For good measure, Karat emphatically supported the decision to de-link from the Congress on the question of the Indo-US nuclear deal, knowing fully well that it remained a sore point with the Bengal unit.

Significantly, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee remained absent during part of Karat's speech, pleading indisposition. Ever since the decision to withdraw support to the UPA Ministry and subsequent Lok Sabha polls, relations have not been quite warm between the two. Bengal leaders complain, not without justification, that the move isolated the CPI(M) nationally and in the state, paving the way for the Trinamool Congress and the Congress to come together. The rest is history.

It may be recalled that Karat had not attended some party meetings in West Bengal in the immediate aftermath of the polls, as state leaders openly criticised the decisions taken at the central level. As for last week's deliberations, they only discussed how effectively the party could regroup and reorganise, picking up the pieces from the ruin that is upon them.

It may be argued that Karat and state CPI(M) leaders have not really come up with any new ideas or fresh initiative , to galvanise party ranks at a time of torment. The slogan for a fresh purge to cleanse the ranks, is old hat. “Do you really think the party brass will go after the senior district leaders, former MPs and Ministers whose corruption and assets are disproportionate to income, their nepotism, their links with the real estate mafia? Of course not, the party be will be torn asunder. As before, some faceless minor functionaries people have not heard of, will be symbolically sacrificed,” says a state Committee member.

In some ways, the meeting showed that the CPI(M) is yet to learn that many of the priorities of its leadership have ceased to matter as political issues. In West Bengal, the Indo-US nuclear deal was never an election issue, nor is US imperialism. Ditto communalism, which again has not been an issue. Yet these are what the party will continue to harp on, through “mass mobilisations”, as both Karat and Bhattacharjee kept stressing, at different party gatherings.

Both know very well that these days, even the party faithful do not respond to calls for a gathering as enthusiastically as before. “Please prepare yourselves for some problems tomorrow, we expect a gathering of 200,000 at our city meeting,” thundered state Secretary Biman Bose, prior to the last public meeting of the CPI(M). In the event, only 30,000 people turned up. And most did not stay till the end!

What the CPI(M) and Bengal left need to do is to identify more with the workers and youths and relearn what their priorities are at the moment, rather than imposing political programmes on the people from above. This will take time and patience, and take left cadres and leaders out of their comfort zone. But they must do this, if they wish to escape political oblivion. (IPA)