CPM advocates capitalism, allies aghast

The CPI, another LF partner also joined the chorus of protest with its state secretary Manju Kumar Mazumdar saying private capital was needed for setting up of industries. 8220;

But that does not mean capitalism is the only way. Such a position is unacceptable to us and we do not agree with Chief Minister8217;s interpretation of capitalism and socialism.8221;

At the annual function of party organ 8216;Ganashakti8217; last week, Bhattacherjee said the reality today was that capitalism was the only way to industrialise the state and ensure economic progress, though socialism was a better alternative.

When Left Front partners fumed at this, CPIM patriarch Jyoti Basu rallied behind Bhattacherjee questioning how in a federal structure three left-ruled states could establish socialism when the country8217;s economy was controlled by capitalism.

Another Left Front ally, the Forward Bloc, which has criticised the CPIM for its handling of the turmoil in Nandigram and the Tata Motors small car project in Singur, also criticised the CPIM.

It held a meeting with the RSP, outside the Left Front, to declare it would tell the CPIM that it would have to change its policy of industrialisation through acquisition of farmland and stop advocating capitalism if the Left Front was to function as a cohesive political unit.

A senior leader of the opposition Trinamool Congress Saugata Roy said , 8220;This has exposed the CPIM8217;s bankruptcy in ideology. While calling themselves Marxist, they are wooing capitalists for so-called development of the state.8221;

He ridiculed the CPIM8217;s claim that it was charting out a new path. 8220;This cannot be the path of socialism.8221;

Roy, a former union minister, jocularly suggested that the party should give up its nomenclature of Communist Party of India Marxist and adopt a new name such as the Party for Progressive Democracy Socialism, a breakaway group of CPIM.

8220;Then there would be less hypocrisy,8221; he said. With the CPIM having to spend an entire year in defending the its agenda since the trouble at Singur and Nandigram, the party was probably in a hurry to carry forward its industrialisation drive.

The seventh Left Front government by Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee started on the policy of creating jobs through industrialisation.

Stating that his government was continuously receiving investment proposals, Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee has said 8220;the new generation and the neo-literates want jobs in industries and the service sector. To the new generation, the alternative is not agriculture, but industrialisation.8221;

The CPIM has said it has not given up its plan for socialism, which could be established after 8216;people8217;s democracy8217; was achieved.

CPIM general secretary Prakash Karat has summed up the party8217;s stand on capitalism by saying 8220;the advance to socialism will be realisable only after the Left and democratic forces are strong enough to build an alternative at the national level.8221;