The Communist Party of India: Connaught Place the Correct Zig Ew Delhl, India April 25, 1958 Mr
INSTITUTE OF CURRENT XORLD AFFAIRS WDF-26 c/o American Express The Communist Party of India: Connaught Place The Correct Zig ew Delhl, India April 25, 1958 Mr. 'Walter S. Rogers Institute of Current World ..Affairs 522 Fifth Aenue w York 36, Row York Dear Mr. Rogers- The Communist Party of India held an "Extraordinary Session"' in Amritsar, the Punjab, from April 6 to 13, and "extraordinary"' is put- ting it mildly. The Communists revamped their Constitution, abolishing that con- spiratorial clichg, the Party '"cell," and substituting the more re- spectable-sourding "branch." They also put an end to the '"Politburo," which smacks of sinister High Command, and replaced it with an enlarged ",Central Executive Committee,'" hich sounds almost llke the Kiwanis Club. The'"revolutlonary changes," to use the Communists' own term, in- cluded a restatement of the ery aim of the Party. Indian Communists ill now strive for ""full democrac and Socialism by pesceful means," specifically by '"deeloplng a powerful mass movement, by winning a majority in Parliament and by backing it with mass sanctions." Although the Party defined itself as the "'highest organisation'" Of the "orking class,'" it blossomed forth, at Amritsar, .in full multi- class sociability. The 474 Comrades who gathered from throughout India. ---bearded Punjabi Sikhs, dark-sklnned Madrassis, dhoti-clad Bengalis--- slept in proletarian humility in Golbagh park, held their meetings in ruling-class exclusiveness in the Badminton' Club, and sllpped away, many of them, in the late afternoons to the bourgeois Kwality Restaurant for ice cream. For all the Communists' extraordinary charges, however, it is still a little early to march down to the nearest friendly neighborhood Party branch and apply for membership.
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