It was the context of colonialism through which with blood and the flames of the gunshots, the process continued. In early seventies of the nineteenth century, a group from Kolkata (till now unidentified) wrote a note to the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association in London, stating, “Great Discontentment exists among the people. ... Taxation is excessive and revenues are swallowed up in maintaining a costly system of officialdom ... in a painful manner, while the workers whose labour creates the wealth live in a wretched condition.”

The letter requested the International to start a wing of the organisation in the country to help the masses. A fortnight later, the General Council of the International held a meeting with Karl Marx presiding it. The idea was approved for opening a wing in Kolkata. Marx commented, “The International was an association exactly in accordance with the aspirations of the working class of India. It would weld the rival races, and sects in one homogenous whole and would help the workers to unite.”

In India, defying the established system of class divided society, the groups were formed eager to move on. With strikes and struggles of the working masses, in the textile mills in Bombay, jute mills in Kolkata, from among the disillusioned revolutionaries, khilafatists, toilers and peasants, students and Youth, they all together built up the national movement against one of the great imperial powers which never saw the sun setting. It was one of the greatest mass struggles in the world joined by every section of the populace, flowing through decades. Every phase had its own character evolving along with the challenges thrown by the colonial forces and the positions taken by the fighting masses. They were preparing not for a ‘military revolt’, confined in parts, but a ‘national revolt’.

“In India serious complications if not general outbreaks, is in store for the British government. What the English annually take away from them ... amounts to more than the total sum of income of 60 million agricultural and industrial labourers of India. This is a bleeding process with a vengeance.” Marx had in one single stroke, brought to light the one fact that was the base line of imperialism.

Taking stream of history as context, Communist Party of India was formed after the historical circumstances were ripe enough for it. It was the process of national liberation struggle, when in various parts of the country, groups had started functioning and also getting arrested. In his ‘Documents of the History of the Communist Party in India’, (Volume Two, 1923-25), published by PPH in 1974, Dr G Adhikari quoted from Com S A Dange’s book “When Communists Differ”, “Following the Kanpur Conspiracy case in 1924, and our conviction... we instructed those who gathered round us in the case to hold a conference of communists and establish a properly constituted party and a central committee inside the country.” A conference therefore was held in 1925, at the time of the Kanpur session of the Congress.

It was in the third decade of the twentieth century at Kanpur on December 26, 1925. The movement kept its pace despite the interruptions. With strikes and struggles of the working masses, in the textile mills in Bombay, jute mills in Kolkata, from among the disillusioned revolutionaries, khilafatists, toilers and peasants, students and youth, they all together built up the national movement. Every phase had its own character evolving along with the challenges thrown by the colonial forces and the positions taken by the fighting masses.

With time, they came to realise that it was transition, forced on them with steam and science. Exploitation was continual and ever growing at the hands of colonial power. They were getting dragged down with no light at the end of the tunnel. The British rulers, being from an advanced economic system, could not further their cause without destroying the existing society and its economy based on self-sufficiency.

A thick weave of workers and peasants that characterised our people, both impoverished and starving, were denied of their sovereignty, their cultural heritage, any possibility of democracy, and also modernity. Denuded of everything they called their own, it was time they assessed their strength to unleash resistance, in multiple ways. As the colonial rule was spread over centuries, it was dotted also by resistance that was against the downgrading of an entire civilisation slipping fast towards slavery of a new form.

Later in the same year, basics of a brief programme were presented along with the party constitution in the conference. The brightest point of the conference was that party could assemble all the comrades representing communist groups active since the early days from Kolkata, Bombay, Madras, Punjab and several other places. All these groups functioning in various parts of the country were independent yet united in the sense that they were one in their cause and commitment. It was commitment towards the proletariat cause, which was spread over the world, and also towards the country itself, with patriotic fervour. It was dialectical unity of a revolutionary struggle. (IPA Service)