December 2013 marks the completion of 35 years of publication of the regular fortnightly Mazdoor Ekta Lehar, organ of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India. The party paper was formerly published as a monthly called People’s Voice.
All members and activists of Communist Ghadar Party study every issue of the party paper and discuss its contents in their basic units. The Central Committee relies on this organ to ensure that the entire Party and all its activists speak in one voice, and march in step along a single line of thought and action.
December 2013 marks the completion of 35 years of publication of the regular fortnightly Mazdoor Ekta Lehar, organ of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India. The party paper was formerly published as a monthly called People’s Voice.
All members and activists of Communist Ghadar Party study every issue of the party paper and discuss its contents in their basic units. The Central Committee relies on this organ to ensure that the entire Party and all its activists speak in one voice, and march in step along a single line of thought and action.
December 2013 marks the completion of 35 years of publication of the regular fortnightly Mazdoor Ekta Lehar, organ of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India. The party paper was formerly published as a monthly called People’s Voice.
All members and activists of Communist Ghadar Party study every issue of the party paper and discuss its contents in their basic units. The Central Committee relies on this organ to ensure that the entire Party and all its activists speak in one voice, and march in step along a single line of thought and action. The paper serves to transmit the party line from its central leadership to all branches and units; and from the entire party to the working class and broad masses of people.
People’s Voice began to be published at a critical juncture in the Indian communist movement. Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which was formed in 1969 as a party committed to social revolution, rejecting the bourgeois reformist parliamentary path of CPI and CPI(M), had split into numerous factions. The entire communist movement was divided on the basis of the divisions within the ruling bourgeois class.
One section of the bourgeoisie, represented by Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party, had declared a National Emergency in 1975 and clamped down on the struggles of workers and peasants as well as on their rivals within the parliament. CPI was supporting Indira Gandhi’s fascistic measures, claiming that she was fighting against “right reaction”. CPI(M) and some factions of CPI(ML) were supporting the parliamentary opposition that had united to form a “Janata” coalition government headed by Morarji Desai in 1977, under the banner of “restoration of democracy”.
At a time when bourgeois rule was in crisis and fascist attacks were being launched on fundamental democratic rights and civil liberties, the Indian working class and its communist vanguard were being divided in line with the inter-bourgeois conflict. In such conditions, Hindustani Ghadar Party (Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad), reiterated the revolutionary aim of the class struggle and undertook to reconstitute the vanguard party of revolution.
People’s Voice began to be published in December 1978, as the organ of the Marxist-Leninist Study Centre in Delhi, set up by the communist Ghadaris who returned from North America to India to reconstitute the party of revolution on Indian soil.
“Hold High the Bright Red Banner of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism!” This was the headline of the first issue of People’s Voice. The paper waged a stern ideological struggle against Soviet revisionism and exposed the unscientific bourgeois content of Mao Zedong thought. It called on all revolutionary communists to come together in one Marxist-Leninist party to prepare the working class to seize political power and carry out the revolution.
Following the founding of Communist Ghadar Party on 25th December, 1980, People’s Voice became the organ of the Central Committee of the party. It started paying serious attention to the ongoing struggles of the working class and other oppressed sections against the exploiting classes and the neo-colonial state in their hands.
Communist Ghadar Party took the lead in openly and boldly denouncing the growing monster of state terrorism in the decade of the eighties. While the official propaganda, which was repeated by most political parties, was directed against “Sikh extremism”, People’s Voice held the central State responsible for the violence and terror in Punjab. It stood out with its bold call for unity against state terrorism.
For 35 years, the party paper has consistently defended the rights of the oppressed nations, nationalities and tribal peoples within the Indian Union. It has denounced the violation of human rights under army rule in Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur and other parts of the North East. It has consistently carried news of the struggles of these peoples for national and social liberation, in opposition to the conspiracy of silence in the mainstream Indian media against them. It has consistently championed the vision of the reconstitution of India as a voluntary union of nations, nationalities and peoples of this land.
The party paper has consistently combated the national-chauvinism that is whipped up on a regular basis by the Indian ruling class against Pakistan. Right in the midst of the high-decibel official propaganda during the Kargil war, thousands of copies of the paper were distributed by Party comrades in all regions of the country, including Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, opposing war against Pakistan and explaining why it only serves imperialism and the traitors among our peoples.
The decade of the nineties opened with abrupt changes on the world scale. The Soviet Union disintegrated and socialist Albania succumbed to the anti-communist wave that was blowing across Europe and the whole world. Communist Ghadar Party recognized that a new period had begun, in which the wind is blowing against revolution. The Central Committee led the entire party in the struggle to work out afresh the General Line and the tactics to be followed in this period. The party paper carried many articles on this subject in the early nineties, reflecting the thoughts emerging from Consultative Conferences organised by the Central Committee in 1991, 1993 and 1995.
The Second Congress, held in October 1998, established the definite practical tasks of the present epoch, around which the working class and people need to be united. It defined these tasks as an immediate end to the anti-worker, anti-peasant and anti-national program of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation; reconstitution of Indian democracy and the union so as to empower the people; overthrow of capitalism as the condition for the completion of the democratic, anti-feudal, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle; and the building of socialism through revolution. It adopted the program for the Navnirman of India, and the slogan: Workers, peasants, women and youth – We constitute India! We are her master!
Until 1997, the English edition of the Party Paper had been the mainstay, the edition that was produced regularly without fail, while Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi and other language editions were produced whenever possible, but not with the same regularity. An Extended Plenum of the Central Committee, held in January 1998, took the decision to make the Hindi edition of Mazdoor Ekta Lehar the mainstay, the edition that would be produced in maximum numbers and regularly every fortnight, without exception. Measures were taken to strengthen the capacity of comrades in Hindi language journalism and in translation between English and Hindi.
The historic decision of the January 1998 Extended Plenum, followed by the adoption of the Party Program in October 1998, led to a qualitative leap in the effectiveness of Mazdoor Ekta Lehar and its impact in the working class. There has been a leap in the number of readers among workers. There have also been many new recruits for the party in Hindi speaking regions of the country.
The party paper is now published both in printed form and on the party’s website (www.cgpi.org). The work of producing the paper is carried out by an Editorial Board, a Publishing Committee and a Web Unit, each reporting directly to the Central Committee. The work of distributing the paper and contributing reports, interviews and letters is carried out by all the basic organisations of the Party. There is a serious effort at this time to develop writers and translators in many more languages of our people.
A constant struggle takes place within the Party to ensure that the paper does not become merely reactive to the agenda of public debate set by the bourgeoisie and its media. The party paper must follow its own agenda, consistent with the independent program of the working class and the decisions of the Party Congress and the Central Committee. Another constant struggle is to write in simple language and without any ambiguity. There should be no room for interpretation, no double meaning.
On the 35th anniversary of its publication, Mazdoor Ekta Lehar rededicates itself to play its role in restoring the unity of Indian communists, at the head of a politically united working class, armed with the theory and tactics of the revolution to liberate Indian society from all forms of backwardness and ignorance, and all forms of exploitation and oppression.
Ghadar Party Lal Salaam! Inquilab Zindabad!