168-581: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (1 March 1944 – 8 August 2024) was an Indian communist politician and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) , who served as the 7th Chief Minister of West Bengal from 2000 to 2011. In a political career over five decades, he became one of the senior leaders of Communist Party of India (Marxist) during his regime. Bhattacharjee was known for his relatively open policies regarding business, in contrast with
336-529: A communist revolution would put the working class in power, and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production . Communism in its modern form grew out of the socialist movement in 18th-century France , in the aftermath of the French Revolution . Criticism of the idea of private property in the Age of Enlightenment of
504-626: A semi-colony to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education, and life expectancy. Its leading role in World War II saw the emergence of the industrialized Soviet Union as a superpower . Marxist–Leninist governments modeled on the Soviet Union took power with Soviet assistance in Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , East Germany , Poland , Hungary, and Romania . A Marxist–Leninist government
672-597: A child who underwent gender surgery and is now known as Suchetan Bhattacharjee. Bhattacharjee was renowned for his frugal lifestyle. The family lived in a two-room apartment in Ballygunge , Kolkata. Bhattacharjee operated as Chief Minister from the same residence. Although belonging to a family of priests, Bhattacharjee was an avowed atheist, in accordance with the principles of communism. Bhattacharjee died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Kolkata, on 8 August 2024, at
840-468: A distinct stage between capitalism and communism. This intermediate stage was a concept introduced by Vladimir Lenin as a means to defend the Bolshevik seizure of power against traditional Marxist criticism that Russia's productive forces were not sufficiently developed for socialist revolution . A distinction between communist and socialist as descriptors of political ideologies arose in 1918 after
1008-463: A form of state capitalism . Public memory of 20th-century Communist states has been described as a battleground between anti anti-communism and anti-communism . Many authors have written about mass killings under communist regimes and mortality rates , such as excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin , which remain controversial, polarized, and debated topics in academia, historiography, and politics when discussing communism and
1176-520: A form of communism. In their words, the Hutterites "established in their communities a rigorous system of Ordnungen, which were codes of rules and regulations that governed all aspects of life and ensured a unified perspective. As an economic system, communism was attractive to many of the peasants who supported social revolution in sixteenth century central Europe." This link was highlighted in one of Karl Marx 's early writings; Marx stated that "[a]s Christ
1344-592: A former Naxalite student leader, had unsuccessfully contested the 1991 assembly election as a CPI(M)-supported candidate. Ahead of the 1996 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election , WBSP had merged into the Samajwadi Party which became a member of the Left Front. CPI(M) fielded 217 candidates in the assembly election, CPI 12, AIFB 34, RSP 23, RCPI 2 and BBC 1 candidate on an independent ticket. DSP, WBSP and MFB candidates contested on CPI(M) tickets. In 5 seats
1512-455: A greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts, which has then led to contradictory conclusions. There is a movement toward the recognition that historical materialism and dialectical materialism remain the fundamental aspects of all Marxist schools of thought . Marxism–Leninism and its offshoots are
1680-545: A hierarchical basis, with active cells of members as the broad base. They were made up only of elite cadres approved by higher members of the party as being reliable and completely subject to party discipline . The Great Purge of 1936–1938 was Joseph Stalin 's attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . In the Moscow trials , many old Bolsheviks who had played prominent roles during
1848-527: A matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists' adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx." In the United States, communism is widely used as a pejorative term as part of a Red Scare , much like socialism , and mainly in reference to authoritarian socialism and Communist states . The emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally Communist state led to
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#17328985584752016-504: A more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party -driven approach through the development of a socialist state , followed by the withering away of the state . As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum , communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left. Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism , Marxist schools of thought , and religious communism , among others. Communism encompasses
2184-425: A particular type of communism. One of the first uses of the word in its modern sense is in a letter sent by Victor d'Hupay to Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne around 1785, in which d'Hupay describes himself as an auteur communiste ("communist author"). In 1793, Restif first used communisme to describe a social order based on egalitarianism and the common ownership of property. Restif would go on to use
2352-614: A police camp at Silda , violence in Lalgarh and the Jnaneswari Express train derailment . Bhattacharya himself survived an assassination attempt by Maoists in 2008. Bhattacharjee started an industrialization drive in West Bengal to bring in more investment and jobs in the states. Under his government, West Bengal saw investments in the IT and services sector. Notable among the invited projects
2520-525: A possible communist or socialist theorist, or as the first author to give communism a serious consideration. The 5th-century Mazdak movement in Persia (modern-day Iran) has been described as communistic for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the clergy , criticizing the institution of private property , and striving to create an egalitarian society. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under
2688-521: A post-capitalist society – positive humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'Communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death." According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , "Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been
2856-599: A prerequisite to socialism , were critical of the Bolsheviks from the beginning due to Russia being seen as too backward for a socialist revolution . Council communism and left communism , inspired by the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the wide proletarian revolutionary wave, arose in response to developments in Russia and are critical of self-declared constitutionally socialist states . Some left-wing parties, such as
3024-458: A socialist principle of " to each according to his contribution ". Socialism has been described as a philosophy seeking distributive justice, and communism as a subset of socialism that prefers economic equality as its form of distributive justice. In 19th century Europe, the use of the terms communism and socialism eventually accorded with the cultural attitude of adherents and opponents towards religion . In European Christendom , communism
3192-546: A socialist state that is in the process of constructing communism. Terms used by Communist states include national-democratic , people's democratic , socialist-oriented , and workers and peasants' states. According to Richard Pipes , the idea of a classless , egalitarian society first emerged in ancient Greece . Since the 20th century, ancient Rome has been examined in this context, as well as thinkers such as Aristotle , Cicero , Demosthenes , Plato , and Tacitus . Plato, in particular, has been considered as
3360-470: A state relief camp outside Nandigram." Actually Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declared that land in Nandigram wouldn't be acquired by ordering the Nandigram notification to be torn apart. Still police were not allowed to enter Nandigram. Roads were dug up, preventing administration from entering the area. The CPI(M) declared that they were totally behind Bhattacharjee and had drawn up "plans" to placate his critics in
3528-439: A variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism , Leninism , and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism , its economic system , and mode of production , that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes
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#17328985584753696-692: A work about More, whose ideas could be regarded as "the foregleam of Modern Socialism" according to Kautsky. During the October Revolution in Russia, Vladimir Lenin suggested that a monument be dedicated to More, alongside other important Western thinkers. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, where a Puritan religious group known as the Diggers advocated the abolition of private ownership of land. In his 1895 Cromwell and Communism , Eduard Bernstein stated that several groups during
3864-466: Is a non- idealist attempt at the understanding of material history and society, whereby communism is the expression of a real movement, with parameters that are derived from actual life. According to Marxist theory, class conflict arises in capitalist societies due to contradictions between the material interests of the oppressed and exploited proletariat – a class of wage laborers employed to produce goods and services – and
4032-774: Is an alliance of left-wing political parties in the Indian state of West Bengal . It was formed in January 1977, the founding parties being the Communist Party of India (Marxist) , All India Forward Bloc , the Revolutionary Socialist Party , the Marxist Forward Bloc , the Revolutionary Communist Party of India and the Biplobi Bangla Congress . Other parties joined in later years, most notably
4200-424: Is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution . The two classes are the proletariat , who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie , a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis,
4368-480: Is that of educating voters in what are deemed their true interests rather than in response to the expression of interest by voters themselves. When they have gained control of the state, Leninist communists' main task was preventing other political parties from deceiving the proletariat, such as by running their own independent candidates. This vanguardist approach comes from their commitments to democratic centralism in which communists can only be cadres, i.e. members of
4536-733: Is the Chairman of the West Bengal Left Front Committee. The Left Front has its roots in various past platforms of collaboration of the West Bengal left parties and anti- Indian National Congress forces. Such examples were the United Left Front , the People's United Left Front and the United Front that governed West Bengal 1967–1971. However, ahead of the March 1977 Lok Sabha election
4704-530: Is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty." Thomas Müntzer led a large Anabaptist communist movement during the German Peasants' War , which Friedrich Engels analyzed in his 1850 work The Peasant War in Germany . The Marxist communist ethos that aims for unity reflects
4872-650: Is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer ; for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder. After the Chinese Civil War , Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949 as the Nationalist government headed by the Kuomintang fled to the island of Taiwan. In 1950–1953, China engaged in a large-scale, undeclared war with
5040-596: The 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election , socialist parties totaled well over 70% of the vote. The Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, and took around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the Western Front, obtaining 23.3% of the vote; the Socialist Revolutionaries finished first on the strength of support from the country's rural peasantry, who were for the most part single issue voters , that issue being land reform, obtaining 37.6%, while
5208-482: The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union . War communism was the first system adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War as a result of the many challenges. Despite communism in the name, it had nothing to do with communism, with strict discipline for workers, strike actions forbidden, obligatory labor duty, and military-style control, and has been described as simple authoritarian control by
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5376-446: The 1989 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 31 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. In Calcutta Northwest the Left Front supported a Janata Dal candidates who failed to get elected. CPI(M) won 27 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 4 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal, including the votes for the JD candidate, reached 16,284,415 votes (50.6% of the votes cast in
5544-630: The 2009 Indian general election . In the 2011 state assembly election , he was defeated at Jadavpur by the former Chief Secretary of his own government, and the Trinamool congress candidate Manish Gupta by 16,684 votes. He became the second West Bengal Chief Minister to lose an election from his own constituency, after Prafulla Chandra Sen in 1967. The Left Front saw a drubbing, securing just 62 seats out of 294. He resigned as Chief Minister on 13 May 2011. Events during his tenure as Chief Minister included attempts to industrialize West Bengal thwarted by
5712-675: The All India Gorkha League and 1 candidate of the Communist Revolutionary League of India . CPI(M) won 182 seats, CPI 6 seats, AIFB 29 seats, RSP 18 seats, WBSP 4, seats, DSP 2 seats, RCPI 1 seat, MFB 2 seats and DSP 1 seat (on its own symbol). One JD candidate won. The combined vote for Left Front and allies stood at 15,090,595 (48.92% of the votes cast in the state). In the 1991 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 30 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. In Calcutta Northwest and Calcutta Northeast
5880-463: The Chakdaha seat . The Left Front won the election, winning 231 out of the 294 seats. CPI(M) won 178 seats, AIFB 25, RSP 20, MFB 3, RCPI 3 and 1 independent. AIFB and RSP won significant chunks of seats in northern Bengal. The combined Left Front vote was 6,568,999 votes (45.8% of the votes cast in the state). The electoral result came as a surprise to the Left Front itself, as it had offered 52% of
6048-644: The Cheget , to Russian president Boris Yeltsin . That evening at 7:32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag . Previously, from August to December 1991, all the individual republics, including Russia itself, had seceded from the union. The week before the union's formal dissolution, eleven republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol , formally establishing
6216-723: The Christian universalist teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people. Communist thought has also been traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More . In his 1516 treatise titled Utopia , More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason and virtue . Marxist communist theoretician Karl Kautsky , who popularized Marxist communism in Western Europe more than any other thinker apart from Engels, published Thomas More and His Utopia ,
6384-545: The Cold War had begun. Stalin himself believed that capitalism was a hollow shell and would crumble under increased non-military pressure exerted through proxies in countries like Italy. He greatly underestimated the economic strength of the West and instead of triumph saw the West build up alliances that were designed to permanently stop or contain Soviet expansion. In early 1950, Stalin gave
6552-804: The Commonwealth of Independent States , and declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. As of 2023, states controlled by Communist parties under a single-party system include the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba , the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , the Lao People's Democratic Republic , and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam . Communist parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in several other countries. With
6720-398: The Communist Party of India . The Left Front ruled the state of West Bengal for seven consecutive terms 1977–2011, five with Jyoti Basu as Chief Minister and two under Buddhadev Bhattacharya . The CPI(M) is the dominant force in the alliance. In the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front failed to gain a majority of seats and left office. As of 2016 Biman Bose
6888-604: The English Civil War (especially the Diggers) espoused clear communistic, agrarianist ideals and that Oliver Cromwell 's attitude towards these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile. Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century through such thinkers as Gabriel Bonnot de Mably , Jean Meslier , Étienne-Gabriel Morelly , and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France. During
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7056-571: The Government of India awarded Bhattacharjee with the Padma Bhushan , the third-highest civilian award in India. However, he declined the award and claimed that he had not been informed about the award. He said a call was made to his residence earlier in the day, while adding there is no provision of taking consent for giving Padma awards. Bhattacharjee was married to Meera Bhattacharjee. Together, they had
7224-588: The Marxist Forward Bloc , the Revolutionary Communist Party of India and the Biplabi Bangla Congress , articulated a common programme. The Left Front contested the Lok Sabha election in an electoral understanding together with the Janata Party . The Workers Party of India applied for inclusion into the Left Front, but was denied entry. In the 1977 Lok Sabha election the Left Front contested 26 out of
7392-512: The Russian Revolution or in Lenin's Soviet government afterwards, including Lev Kamenev , Grigory Zinoviev , Alexei Rykov , and Nikolai Bukharin , were accused, pleaded guilty of conspiracy against the Soviet Union, and were executed. The devastation of World War II resulted in a massive recovery program involving the rebuilding of industrial plants, housing, and transportation as well as
7560-596: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party renamed itself as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , which resulted in the adjective Communist being used to refer to socialists who supported the politics and theories of Bolshevism, Leninism , and later in the 1920s those of Marxism–Leninism . In spite of this common usage, Communist parties also continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism. According to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx , "Marx used many terms to refer to
7728-641: The Salt Lake City township in Kolkata . Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's Government came under heavy criticism for police action against demonstrators in Nandigram in East Midnapore . He was criticized not only by opposition parties (such as the Trinamool Congress , INC , PDS , BJP , CPI(ML)L , CRLI and others) and other Left Front coalition allies like CPI , RSP and AIFB , who threatened to back out from
7896-688: The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in the October Revolution; after a few weeks of deliberation, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries formed a coalition government with the Bolsheviks from November 1917 to July 1918, while the right-wing faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party boycotted the soviets and denounced the October Revolution as an illegal coup . In
8064-580: The Socialist Party of Great Britain , boasted of having called the Bolsheviks, and by extension those Communist states which either followed or were inspired by the Soviet Bolshevik model of development, establishing state capitalism in late 1917, as would be described during the 20th century by several academics, economists, and other scholars, or a command economy . Before the Soviet path of development became known as socialism , in reference to
8232-696: The TATA 's Tata Motors leaving Bengal in the face of the joint protests of the Trinamool Congress , Socialist Unity Centre of India , and Indian National Congress , the land acquisition dispute in Singur , the Nandigram incident , and the Netai incident. In January 2006 the Supreme Court of India issued notices to Left Front Government ministers including Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and others in relation to land allotments made in
8400-557: The West Bengal Socialist Party (both DSP and WBSP became Left Front member parties). Some of the older, smaller Left Front constituents were uncomfortable with the expansion of the alliance, claiming that CPI(M) was diluting it politically. There were also disagreements on distribution of ministerial portfolios after the expansion of the alliance. CPI(M) contested 209 seats in the assembly election, CPI 12 seats, AIFB 34 seats and RSP 23 seats. 16 candidates were fielded by
8568-427: The bourgeoisie – the ruling class that owns the means of production and extracts its wealth through appropriation of the surplus product produced by the proletariat in the form of profit . This class struggle that is commonly expressed as the revolt of a society's productive forces against its relations of production , results in a period of short-term crises as the bourgeoisie struggle to manage
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#17328985584758736-400: The common ownership of the means of production, therefore abolishing the bourgeoisie, ultimately abolishing the proletariat itself and ushering the world into communism as a new mode of production . In between capitalism and communism, there is the dictatorship of the proletariat ; it is the defeat of the bourgeois state but not yet of the capitalist mode of production, and at the same time
8904-648: The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Fall of Communism , there was a split between those hardline Communists, sometimes referred to in the media as neo-Stalinists , who remained committed to orthodox Marxism–Leninism , and those, such as The Left in Germany, who work within the liberal-democratic process for a democratic road to socialism; other ruling Communist parties became closer to democratic socialist and social-democratic parties. Outside Communist states, reformed Communist parties have led or been part of left-leaning government or regional coalitions, including in
9072-450: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, several previously Communist governments repudiated or abolished Communist rule altogether. Afterwards, only a small number of nominally Communist governments remained, such as China , Cuba , Laos , North Korea , and Vietnam . With the exception of North Korea, all of these states have started allowing more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule. The decline of communism in
9240-476: The materialist conception of history which holds that the key characteristic of economic systems through history has been the mode of production and that the change between modes of production has been triggered by class struggle. According to this analysis, the Industrial Revolution ushered the world into the new capitalist mode of production . Before capitalism, certain working classes had ownership of instruments used in production; however, because machinery
9408-445: The means of production , earning profit via the surplus value generated by the proletariat, who have no ownership of the means of production and therefore no option but to sell its labor to the bourgeoisie. According to the materialist conception of history, it is through the furtherance of its own material interests that the rising bourgeoisie within feudalism captured power and abolished, of all relations of private property, only
9576-401: The productive forces ) is the primary agent of change in the structure of society and of human social relations and that social systems and their relations (e.g. feudalism , capitalism , and so on) become contradictory and inefficient as the productive forces develop, which results in some form of social revolution arising in response to the mounting contradictions. This revolutionary change is
9744-435: The two-stage theory , communists made no major distinction between the socialist mode of production and communism; it is consistent with, and helped to inform, early concepts of socialism in which the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Monetary relations in the form of exchange-value , profit , interest , and wage labor would not operate and apply to Marxist socialism. While Joseph Stalin stated that
9912-475: The 18th century through such thinkers as Gabriel Bonnot de Mably , Jean Meslier , Étienne-Gabriel Morelly , Henri de Saint-Simon and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France. During the upheaval of the French Revolution , communism emerged as a political doctrine under the auspices of François-Noël Babeuf , Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne , and Sylvain Maréchal , all of whom can be considered the progenitors of modern communism, according to James H. Billington . In
10080-414: The 20th century, several ostensibly Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power, first in the Soviet Union with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II . As one of the many types of socialism , communism became the dominant political tendency, along with social democracy , within
10248-452: The 20th century. In Western Europe, communist parties were part of several post-war governments, and even when the Cold War forced many of those countries to remove them from government, such as in Italy, they remained part of the liberal-democratic process. There were also many developments in libertarian Marxism, especially during the 1960s with the New Left . By the 1960s and 1970s, many Western communist parties had criticized many of
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#173289855847510416-403: The 42 West Bengal Lok Sabha constituencies; CPI(M) fielded candidates for 20 seats, RSP 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. CPI(M) won 17 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 3 seats. The combined Left Front vote in West Bengal reached 5,049,077 votes (33.4% of the votes cast in the state). Ahead of the subsequent June 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections seat-sharing talks between the Left Front and
10584-455: The Bolsheviks to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology . The Soviet Union was established in 1922. Before the broad ban in 1921, there were several factions in the Communist party, more prominently among them the Left Opposition , the Right Opposition , and the Workers' Opposition , which debated on the path of development to follow. The Left and Workers' oppositions were more critical of
10752-437: The CPI and RSP fielded all of their incumbent MPs. The Left Front fielded the ex-mayor and 4-term minister Prasanta Sur to contest against Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee for the Calcutta South seat , but Sur failed to defeat Banerjee. The Left Front also fielded Prasanta Chatterjee, the sitting mayor of Calcutta for the Calcutta Northeast seat as well as fielding sitting Howrah mayor Swadesh Chakravarty against
10920-399: The CPI(M) election campaign came off to an early start. A mammoth United Front (the national alliance backed by the left at the time) election meeting was held in Calcutta on 31 January 1998 with Jyoti Basu as the main speaker. Basu undertook a tour of all West Bengal districts to campaign for the Left Front candidates. The CPI(M) candidates included 18 incumbent Lok Sabha MPs, whereas
11088-422: The Communist ideal. Mao charged that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of a "revisionist clique" which had turned against Marxism and Leninism and was now setting the stage for the restoration of capitalism. The two nations were at sword's point by 1960. Both began forging alliances with communist supporters around the globe, thereby splitting the worldwide movement into two hostile camps. Rejecting
11256-403: The Congress(I) MP Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi . AIFB fielded a new candidate in Barasat , as the Barasat MP Chitta Basu had died. All in all, CPI(M) won 24 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 2 seats and RSP 4 seats. AIFB lost the Barasat seat to Trinamool Congress. The Left Front vote in West Bengal reached 17,101,211 votes (46% of the votes cast in the state). Ahead of the 1999 Lok Sabha election ,
11424-429: The Constituent Assembly in January 1918. The Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was issued by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union , a committee dominated by Lenin, who had previously supported a multi-party system of free elections. After the Bolshevik defeat, Lenin started referring to the assembly as a "deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarianism." Some argued this
11592-420: The Deputy Chief minister of West Bengal. On 6 November 2000, he was elevated to the position of Chief Minister after Basu's resignation. In 2002, he was elected to the politburo of CPI(M). Bhattacharjee was elected Chief Minister of West Bengal and was sworn in in a solemn ceremony at Raj Bhawan. As Chief Minister, he led the CPI(M)-led Left Front to two successive election victories in 2001 and 2006. In 2001,
11760-409: The Fourierists in France were considered respectable socialists, while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves communists . This latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany. While liberal democrats looked to the Revolutions of 1848 as a democratic revolution , which in
11928-416: The Great Leap was a very expensive disaster." Put in charge of rescuing the economy, Deng adopted pragmatic policies that the idealistic Mao disliked. For a while, Mao was in the shadows but returned to center stage and purged Deng and his allies in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The Cultural Revolution was an upheaval that targeted intellectuals and party leaders from 1966 through 1976. Mao's goal
12096-505: The Janata Party broke down. The Left Front had offered the Janata Party 52% of the seats and the post as Chief Minister to JP leader Prafulla Chandra Sen , but JP did not accept anything less than 56% of the seats. The Left Front thus opted to contest the elections on its own. It issued a 36-point manifesto ahead of the polls. The Left Front manifesto has similarities with the past 32-point United Front manifesto. The seat-sharing within
12264-670: The Left Front released its list of candidates on 30 July 1999; CPI(M) contested 32 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. The Left Front fielded nine new candidates; two sitting CPI(M) MPs were replaced ( Ananda Pathak from Darjeeling and Ajoy Mukherjee from Krishnanagar ). CPI(M) fielded new faces in five Calcutta constituencies. AIFB fielded a new candidate in Barasat . RSP and CPI retained all their sitting parliamentarians as candidates for re-election. CPI(M) won 21 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 2 seats and RSP 3 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal reached 16,494,424 votes (46.1% of
12432-552: The Left Front secured 199 out of 294 assembly seats and in 2006, it improved the tally to 235 out of 294 seats. Bhattacharjee's tenure saw major incidents of violence perpetrated by the cadres of the ruling CPI(M) like the Chhoto Angaria massacre , the Netai killings and the Dhantala case. There was also an escalation of Maoist attacks in the state, the most notable being the attack on
12600-596: The Left Front supported JD candidates, mainly in the Calcutta area. The Left Front won 203 out of 294 seats, the first major electoral set-back since its foundation. CPI(M) won 157 seats (including minor parties on its tickets), CPI 6, AFB 21, RSP 18 and BBC 1. The electoral losses were primarily felt in Calcutta and the industrial areas, and nine incumbent Left Front ministers failed to get re-elected. All JD candidates finished in second place and RCPI lost its representation in
12768-410: The Left Front supported a Janata Dal candidates who failed to get elected. CPI(M) won 27 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 4 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal, including the votes for the JD candidates, reached 14,955,151 votes (47.1% of the votes cast in the state). In 1995 the Communist Revolutionary League of India (CRLI) of Ashim Chatterjee joined the Left Front. Chatterjee,
12936-582: The Left Front was based on the 'Promode Formula', named after the CPI(M) State Committee Secretary Promode Dasgupta . Under the Promode Formula the party with the highest share of votes in a constituency would continue to field candidates there, under its own election symbol and manifesto. CPI(M) contested 224 seats, AIFB 36, RSP 23, MFB 3, RCPI 4 and BBC 2. There was also a Left Front-supported independent candidate in
13104-487: The Left Front won a landslide victory. Some 800,000 acres of land were distributed to 1.5 million heads of households between 1978 and 1982. The Left Front government was also credited with coping with the refugee situation created by the Bangladesh Liberation War and severe floods. Seeing distribution of central government funds as unjust and politicized, the Left Front government began measures to pressure
13272-652: The Left Front. His government was also criticized by Left supporters for failing to protect the Left party workers (including his own party CPI(M)) who came under assault from political opponents - both right wing and ultra-left wing Maoists during the post-Nandigram turmoil until the end of 7th Left Front Government. Bhattacharjee was elected as Member of Legislative Assembly from Cossipur (Vidhan Sabha constituency) once and from Jadavpur (Vidhan Sabha constituency) for five consecutive terms. Year Held Despite his calls to be relieved of party responsibilities, Bhattacharjee
13440-702: The MLA of Jadavpur and continued to represent the constituency till 2011. He was re-inducted in the cabinet in 1987 as the Minister of Information and Cultural Affairs. He also held departments of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs. He was included in the cabinet in 1991 as a minister, with the portfolios of Information and Cultural Affairs and Urban Development and Municipal Affairs. However, he abruptly resigned from his position in September 1993, following differences with then Chief Minister of West Bengal , Jyoti Basu , regarding
13608-581: The October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . By November 1917, the Russian Provisional Government had been widely discredited by its failure to withdraw from World War I, implement land reform, or convene the Russian Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution, leaving the soviets in de facto control of the country. The Bolsheviks moved to hand power to
13776-776: The Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Nationalist Congress Party . One of the RJD candidates was elected. The Left Front significantly improved its performance in comparison to 2001 in the North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts . Only in the Cooch Behar District did the Left Front suffer a reversal of fortunes. Following the 2006 election, Tata Motors announced that it would establish its Tata Nano car factory in Singur . A major land dispute surged. Likewise,
13944-643: The Russian Federation has some supporters, but is reformist rather than revolutionary, aiming to lessen the inequalities of Russia's market economy. Chinese economic reforms were started in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping , and since then China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era to just 8% in 2001. After losing Soviet subsidies and support, Vietnam and Cuba have attracted more foreign investment to their countries, with their economies becoming more market-oriented. North Korea,
14112-431: The Soviet Union . The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States , although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do it at all. On the previous day, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev (the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union ) resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers, including control of
14280-476: The Soviet government of Nikita Khrushchev , who enacted a period of de-Stalinization and re-approached diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia in 1976. The Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong, established the People's Republic of China , which would follow its own ideological path of development following the Sino-Soviet split . Communism was seen as a rival of and a threat to Western capitalism for most of
14448-516: The Soviet model of rapid urbanization, Mao Zedong and his top aide Deng Xiaoping launched the Great Leap Forward in 1957–1961 with the goal of industrializing China overnight, using the peasant villages as the base rather than large cities. Private ownership of land ended and the peasants worked in large collective farms that were now ordered to start up heavy industry operations, such as steel mills. Plants were built in remote locations, due to
14616-546: The Soviets, built the hydrogen bomb , and strengthened the NATO alliance that covered Western Europe . According to Gorlizki and Khlevniuk, Stalin's consistent and overriding goal after 1945 was to consolidate the nation's superpower status and in the face of his growing physical decrepitude, to maintain his own hold on total power. Stalin created a leadership system that reflected historic czarist styles of paternalism and repression yet
14784-545: The Trinamool Congress candidate was a major jolt to the alliance. On 27 October 2000 Basu, aged 86, was given permission by the CPI(M) leadership to resign as Chief Minister. Buddhadev Bhattacharya was sworn in as new Chief Minister on 6 November 2000. In the 2001 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front won 199 out of 294 seats, having received 17,912,669 votes along with its RJD and JD(S) allies (49% of
14952-745: The Ukrainian Socialist Bloc finished a distant third at 12.7%, and the Mensheviks obtained a disappointing fourth place at 3.0%. Most of the Socialist Revolutionary Party's seats went to the right-wing faction. Citing outdated voter-rolls, which did not acknowledge the party split, and the assembly's conflicts with the Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik–Left Socialist-Revolutionaries government moved to dissolve
15120-618: The United States, South Korea, and United Nations forces in the Korean War . While the war ended in a military stalemate, it gave Mao the opportunity to identify and purge elements in China that seemed supportive of capitalism. At first, there was close cooperation with Stalin, who sent in technical experts to aid the industrialization process along the line of the Soviet model of the 1930s. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with Moscow soured – Mao thought Stalin's successors had betrayed
15288-484: The West Bengal Land (Amendment) Bill was passed. Through Operation Barga was done before in 1967 under the leadership of Hare Krishna Konar and Benoy Choudhury , in which share-croppers were given inheritable rights on lands they tilled, 1.1 million acres of land was distributed amongst 1.4 million share-croppers. On 4 June 1978 three-tier panchayat local bodies were elected across the state, elections in which
15456-479: The abolition of capitalism. For Leninist communism, such goals, including short-term proletarian interests to improve their political and material conditions, can only be achieved through vanguardism , an elitist form of socialism from above that relies on theoretical analysis to identify proletarian interests rather than consulting the proletarians themselves, as is advocated by libertarian communists. When they engage in elections, Leninist communists' main task
15624-495: The actions of communist states, distanced from them, and developed a democratic road to socialism , which became known as Eurocommunism . This development was criticized by more orthodox supporters of the Soviet Union as amounting to social democracy . Since 1957, communists have been frequently voted into power in the Indian state of Kerala . In 1959, Cuban communist revolutionaries overthrew Cuba's previous government under
15792-419: The age of 80. Communism Communism (from Latin communis , 'common, universal') is a sociopolitical , philosophical , and economic ideology within the socialist movement , whose goal is the creation of a communist society , a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production , distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in
15960-514: The army and Mao's wife Jiang Qing . China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a " capitalist road ", most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping . During
16128-552: The assembly. However, in terms of votes the Left Front and the five JD candidates got 18,143,795 votes (49.3%). Jyoti Basu's fifth Left Front government was sworn in, with 48 ministers representing all 13 districts of the state. In the 1996 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 31 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. In Calcutta Northwest the Left Front supported a Janata Dal candidate who failed to get elected. CPI(M) won 23 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 4 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal, including
16296-554: The central government to change its approach towards the state governments. These movements eventually resulted in the Sarkaria Commission . Ahead of the 1980 Lok Sabha election the Left Front and the Communist Party of India entered into a seat-sharing agreement. CPI(M) contested 31 seats, RSP 4 seats, AIFB 4 seats and CPI 3 seats. CPI(M) won 28 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 4 seats. The combined Left Front-CPI vote in West Bengal reached 11,086,354 votes (52.7% of
16464-475: The community"; this semantic constitution has led to numerous usages of the word in its evolution. Prior to becoming associated with its more modern conception of an economic and political organization, it was initially used to designate various social situations. After 1848, communism came to be primarily associated with Marxism , most specifically embodied in The Communist Manifesto , which proposed
16632-552: The demobilization and migration of millions of soldiers and civilians. In the midst of this turmoil during the winter of 1946–1947, the Soviet Union experienced the worst natural famine in the 20th century. There was no serious opposition to Stalin as the secret police continued to send possible suspects to the gulag . Relations with the United States and Britain went from friendly to hostile, as they denounced Stalin's political controls over eastern Europe and his Berlin Blockade . By 1947,
16800-681: The dictator Fulgencio Batista . The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro , ruled Cuba from 1959 until 2008. With the fall of the Warsaw Pact after the Revolutions of 1989 , which led to the fall of most of the former Eastern Bloc , the Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December 1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of
16968-452: The feudal privilege, thereby taking the feudal ruling class out of existence. This was another key element behind the consolidation of capitalism as the new mode of production, the final expression of class and property relations that has led to a massive expansion of production. It is only in capitalism that private property in itself can be abolished. Similarly, the proletariat would capture political power, abolish bourgeois property through
17136-477: The former Eastern Bloc. In Nepal, Communists ( CPN UML and Nepal Communist Party ) were part of the 1st Nepalese Constituent Assembly , which abolished the monarchy in 2008 and turned the country into a federal liberal-democratic republic, and have democratically shared power with other communists, Marxist–Leninists, and Maoists ( CPN Maoist ), social democrats ( Nepali Congress ), and others as part of their People's Multiparty Democracy . The Communist Party of
17304-402: The functioning of the administration and the alleged issue of corruption. Notably, he remarked that Basu's cabinet was a "council of thieves". He returned to the cabinet a few months later. Following the 1996 West Bengal election , Bhattacharjee was handed the responsibility of the home and police department, owing to the declining health of the elderly Chief Minister Basu. In 1999, he was made
17472-523: The go-ahead for North Korea 's invasion of South Korea , expecting a short war. He was stunned when the Americans entered and defeated the North Koreans, putting them almost on the Soviet border. Stalin supported China 's entry into the Korean War , which drove the Americans back to the prewar boundaries, but which escalated tensions. The United States decided to mobilize its economy for a long contest with
17640-502: The historic circumstances in which it finds itself", and stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule through the Obshchina . The moderate Mensheviks (minority) opposed Lenin's Bolsheviks (majority) plan for socialist revolution before the capitalist mode of production was more fully developed. The Bolsheviks' successful rise to power was based upon the slogans such as "Peace, Bread, and Land", which tapped into
17808-418: The idea to group together different countries, such as Afghanistan and Hungary , has no adequate explanation. While the term Communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, and news media to refer to countries ruled by Communist parties, these socialist states themselves did not describe themselves as communist or claim to have achieved communism; they referred to themselves as being
17976-534: The inspiration of religious text . In the medieval Christian Church , some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians preached an early form of Christian communism . As summarized by historians Janzen Rod and Max Stanton, the Hutterites believed in strict adherence to biblical principles, church discipline, and practised
18144-442: The intensifying alienation of labor experienced by the proletariat, albeit with varying degrees of class consciousness . In periods of deep crisis, the resistance of the oppressed can culminate in a proletarian revolution which, if victorious, leads to the establishment of the socialist mode of production based on social ownership of the means of production, " To each according to his contribution ", and production for use . As
18312-442: The international socialist movement by the early 1920s. During most of the 20th century, around one-third of the world's population lived under Communist governments. These governments were characterized by one-party rule by a communist party, the rejection of private property and capitalism, state control of economic activity and mass media , restrictions on freedom of religion , and suppression of opposition and dissent. With
18480-622: The lack of technical experts, managers, transportation, or needed facilities. Industrialization failed, and the main result was a sharp unexpected decline in agricultural output, which led to mass famine and millions of deaths. The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1961 being the only years between 1953 and 1983 in which China's economy saw negative growth. Political economist Dwight Perkins argues: "Enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ... In short,
18648-660: The last Communist country that still practices Soviet-style Communism, is both repressive and isolationist. Communist political thought and theory are diverse but share several core elements. The dominant forms of communism are based on Marxism or Leninism but non-Marxist versions of communism also exist, such as anarcho-communism and Christian communism , which remain partly influenced by Marxist theories, such as libertarian Marxism and humanist Marxism in particular. Common elements include being theoretical rather than ideological, identifying political parties not by ideology but by class and economic interest, and identifying with
18816-422: The late 20th century has been attributed to the inherent inefficiencies of communist economies and the general trend of communist governments towards authoritarianism and bureaucracy . While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally Communist state led to communism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model , several scholars posit that in practice the model functioned as
18984-430: The law of value would still apply to socialism and that the Soviet Union was socialist under this new definition, which was followed by other Communist leaders, many other communists maintain the original definition and state that Communist states never established socialism in this sense. Lenin described his policies as state capitalism but saw them as necessary for the development of socialism, which left-wing critics say
19152-546: The left parties under the leadership of CPI(M) decided to form an alliance just amongst themselves, based on past negative experiences in collaboration with centrist anti-Congress forces. The Left Front was set up when the repressive climate of the Emergency was finally relaxed in January 1977. The six founding parties of the Left Front, i.e. the CPI(M), the All India Forward Bloc , the Revolutionary Socialist Party ,
19320-590: The legacy of Communist states. Communism derives from the French word communisme , a combination of the Latin word communis (which literally means common ) and the suffix isme (an act, practice, or process of doing something). Semantically, communis can be translated to "of or for the community", while isme is a suffix that indicates the abstraction into a state, condition, action, or doctrine . Communism may be interpreted as "the state of being of or for
19488-491: The list of candidates. Out of the 234 seats won by the Left Front, 175 were won by CPI(M) candidates, 8 from CPI, 23 AIFB, 20 RSP, 4 WBSP, 2 MFB and 1 DSP. Most of the incumbent ministers were re-elected, exceptions being Prabodh Chandra Sinha (Parliamentary Affairs, DSP) and Mohammed Amin (Labour, CPI(M)). The Left Front Chief Whip, Rabin Deb , also lost his seat. In 4 seats the Left Front supported other parties, two each for
19656-446: The long run ensured liberty, equality, and fraternity , Marxists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate demands of the proletariat . By 1888, Marxists employed the term socialism in place of communism , which had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for the former. It was not until 1917, with the October Revolution , that socialism came to be used to refer to
19824-484: The massive public desire for an end to Russian involvement in World War I , the peasants' demand for land reform , and popular support for the soviets . 50,000 workers had passed a resolution in favour of Bolshevik demand for transfer of power to the soviets Lenin's government also instituted a number of progressive measures such as universal education , healthcare and equal rights for women . The initial stage of
19992-525: The ministry on this issue, but also by his mentor and the state's former chief minister, Jyoti Basu On 15 March 2007, Basu criticized Bhattacharjee for failing to restrain the police in Nandigram. Bhattacharjee expressed regret for the shootings, but claimed that he permitted police action because Nandigram was an "area where there had been no rule of law and no presence of an administration for not one, two or 10 days but for two-and-a-half months, and many hundreds of villagers left Nandigram, and took shelter in
20160-408: The misery of the proletariat – a new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Engels. In 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto . In 1917, the October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for
20328-522: The most advanced capitalist development; however, the Russian Empire was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry, and a minority of industrial workers. Marx warned against attempts "to transform my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophy theory of the arche générale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever
20496-477: The most well-known of these and have been a driving force in international relations during most of the 20th century. Classical Marxism is the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Marx and Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism. Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Marx and which became
20664-485: The official RJD candidate and ran a dissident candidate of their own which finished in second place, ahead of the official Left Front-supported RJD candidate. The sixth Left Front government, with 48 ministers, was sworn in of 19 May 2001. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 32 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. CPI(M) won 26 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 3 seats and RSP 3 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal reached 18,766,404 votes (50.7% of
20832-464: The official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until World War I in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify, and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism. The philosophy of orthodox Marxism includes the understanding that material development (advances in technology in
21000-496: The only element which places into the realm of possibility moving on from this mode of production. This dictatorship , based on the Paris Commune 's model, is to be the most democratic state where the whole of the public authority is elected and recallable under the basis of universal suffrage . Left Front (West Bengal) Post-independence and Cold War Contemporary history The Left Front ( Bengali : বামফ্রন্ট )
21168-464: The party as being reliable and completely subject to party discipline . Trotskyism overtook the left communists as the main dissident communist current, while more libertarian communisms , dating back to the libertarian Marxist current of council communism, remained important dissident communisms outside the Soviet Union. Following Lenin's democratic centralism , the Leninist parties were organized on
21336-401: The party who are full-time professional revolutionaries, as was conceived by Vladimir Lenin . Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism , to understand social class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view social transformation . It originates from
21504-514: The previous financial policies of the CPI(M) , which were primarily anti-capitalist . However, he faced strong land acquisition protests and allegations about violence against the protesters. This led Bhattacharjee to lose the 2011 elections , resulting in the fall of Left Front 's 34 years of rule in West Bengal , the world's longest-lasting democratically elected Communist government. Bhattacharjee
21672-468: The productive forces continued to advance, the communist society , i.e. a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership , follows the maxim " From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ." While it originates from the works of Marx and Engels, Marxism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Different Marxian schools place
21840-440: The proletariat. According to communists, the proletariat can avoid mass unemployment only if capitalism is overthrown; in the short run, state-oriented communists favor state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy as a means to defend the proletariat from capitalist pressure. Some communists are distinguished by other Marxists in seeing peasants and smallholders of property as possible allies in their goal of shortening
22008-503: The religious emphasis with a rational and philanthropic basis. Notable among them were Robert Owen , who founded New Harmony, Indiana , in 1825, and Charles Fourier , whose followers organized other settlements in the United States, such as Brook Farm in 1841. In its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for
22176-503: The remainder of Left Front partners (RCPI, WBSP, DSP, BBC, MFB) and contested as independents. The Left Front won 238 out of 294 seats in the election. CPI(M) won 174 seats, CPI 7 seats, AIFB 28 seats, RSP 19 seats, WBSP 4 seats, DSP 2 seats, RCPI 2 seats, MFB 2 seats. The combined Left Front vote was 11,869,003 votes (52.7% of the votes cast in the state). The incumbent Food Minister, the RCPI leader Sudhindranath Kumar , lost his seat. Kumar
22344-547: The rise to state power of Vladimir Lenin 's Bolsheviks , which was the first time any avowedly communist party reached that position. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in which the Bolsheviks had a majority. The event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement, as Marx stated that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by
22512-404: The same period, Mao's personality cult grew to immense proportions. After Mao's death in 1976, the survivors were rehabilitated and many returned to power. Mao's government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour , and mass executions. Mao has also been praised for transforming China from
22680-439: The seat since 1980. The by-election, as it occurred just months before the 2001 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, was attached crucial importance. Jyoti Basu, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh and CPI leader A.B. Bardhan campaigned for the Left Front candidate whilst Mamata Banerjee campaigned for the Trinamool Congress candidate. The defeat of the Left Front candidate (former Rajya Saha MP Gurudas Dasgupta of CPI) by
22848-435: The seats in the pre-electoral seat-sharing talks with the Janata Party. On 21 June 1977 the Left Front formed a government with Jyoti Basu as its Chief Minister. The first cabinet meeting of the Left Front government ordered the release of political prisoners. The Socialist Party joined the Left Front after the 1977 elections. Prior to the arrival of the Left Front government, the political environment of West Bengal
23016-445: The society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes , and ultimately money and the state (or nation state ). Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization , revolutionary spontaneity , and workers' self-management , and
23184-413: The state secretariat till 2018. In 2018, due to continuing ill-health he stepped down from the state committee and the state secretariat. He was later named as a special invitee to the state committee. In 2019, he made an attempt to attend a mega-rally at Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata, however, due to breathing difficulties he could not appear on the stage and remained seated in his car. In January 2022,
23352-873: The state). In the 1991 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front won 244 seats. CPI(M) had fielded 205 candidates (excluding minor parties contesting on CPI(M) tickets), CPI 11, AIFB 34, RSP 23, MFB 2, RCPI 2, DSP 2, WBSP 4 and BBC 1. Several leaders of minor Left Front parties contested on the CPI(M) symbol, such as Kiranmoy Nanda (WBSP), Gouranga Samanta (BBC) and Prabodh Chandra Sinha (DSP). However, DSP also one candidate with its own symbol in Pingla. Two different RCPI tickets contested Hansan (RCPI (Rasik Bhatt)) and Santipur ( Real Communist Party of India ) respectively. MFB fielded 1 candidate on an independent ticket and 1 candidate on CPI(M) ticket. The Left Front supported Janata Dal candidates in 8 constituencies, mainly in and around Calcutta, as well as 1 candidate of
23520-641: The state-capitalist development and the Workers' in particular was critical of bureaucratization and development from above, while the Right Opposition was more supporting of state-capitalist development and advocated the New Economic Policy . Following Lenin's democratic centralism , the Leninist parties were organized on a hierarchical basis, with active cells of members as the broad base. They were made up only of elite cadres approved by higher members of
23688-512: The term communism fell out of use during this period. An early distinction between communism and socialism was that the latter aimed to only socialize production , whereas the former aimed to socialize both production and consumption (in the form of common access to final goods ). This distinction can be observed in Marx's communism, where the distribution of products is based on the principle of " to each according to his needs ", in contrast to
23856-595: The term frequently in his writing and was the first to describe communism as a form of government . John Goodwyn Barmby is credited with the first use of communism in English, around 1840. Since the 1840s, the term communism has usually been distinguished from socialism . The modern definition and usage of the term socialism was settled by the 1860s, becoming predominant over alternative terms such as associationism ( Fourierism ), mutualism , or co-operative , which had previously been used as synonyms. Meanwhile,
24024-607: The term's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet-type economic planning model. In his essay "Judging Nazism and Communism", Martin Malia defines a "generic Communism" category as any Communist political party movement led by intellectuals ; this umbrella term allows grouping together such different regimes as radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge 's anti-urbanism. According to Alexander Dallin ,
24192-499: The upheaval of the French Revolution , communism emerged as a political doctrine under the auspices of François-Noël Babeuf , Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne , and Sylvain Maréchal , all of whom can be considered the progenitors of modern communism, according to James H. Billington . In the early 19th century, various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. Unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced
24360-416: The vehicle for fundamental society-wide changes and ultimately leads to the emergence of new economic systems . As a term, orthodox Marxism represents the methods of historical materialism and of dialectical materialism, and not the normative aspects inherent to classical Marxism, without implying dogmatic adherence to the results of Marx's investigations. At the root of Marxism is historical materialism,
24528-669: The votes cast in the state). CRLI left the Left Front in 2000 in the wake of the Saifuddin Choudhury 's expulsion from CPI(M). In 2000, the WBSP was reconstituted after Amar Singh took over the Samajwadi Party and Kiranmoy Nanda (Fisheries Minister of Left Front government 1982–2011) broke away. In 2000 a by-election was called for the Panskura Lok Sabha seat as the sitting CPI MP Geeta Mukherjee died. Mukherjee had held
24696-523: The votes cast in the state). In the 2006 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front won 234 out of 294 seats and received 19,800,148 votes (including votes for allies, representing 50.2% of the statewide vote). The Left Front had contested 290 seats (210 CPI(M), 34 AIFB, 23 RSP, 13 CPI, 4 WBSP, 2 DSP, 2 MFB, 1 RCPI, 1 BBC). In selecting candidates, the Left Front denied tickets to 64 incumbent legislators (52 from CPI(M), 8 from AIFB, 2 from WBSP, 1 from RSP, 1 from CPI), seeking to rejuvenate
24864-531: The votes cast in the state). On 27 May 1980 the Left Front cancelled the past Code of Conduct for state government employees, which had limited the right to strike. In 1982 the Left Front acquired three new members, CPI joined the Left Front ahead of the 1982 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections and the Socialist Party was split into the Democratic Socialist Party (Prabodh Chandra) and
25032-625: The votes cast in the state). On 30 June 1985, the first Calcutta Municipal Corporation elections were held under the Left Front rule, an election that the alliance won. In the 1987 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front increased its share of seats to 251. CPI(M) had contested 213 seats, CPI 12 seats, AIFB 34 seats and RSP 23 seats. 12 candidates were fielded by smaller Left Front partners on independent tickets. CPI(M) won 187 seats, CPI 11 seats, AIFB 26 seats, RSP 18 seats, WBSP 4 seats, MFB 2 seats, DSP 2 seats and RCPI 1 seat. The Left Front vote stood at 13,924,806 (53%). In
25200-401: The votes for the JD candidate, reached 18,011,700 votes (47.8% of the votes cast in the state). In the 1998 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 32 seats, RSP 4 seats, CPI 3 seats and AIFB 3 seats. The list of candidates was announced at a press conference on 6 January 1998. The Left Front had been able to reach consensus on its candidates well before the other major parties, and subsequently
25368-734: The votes in the state). For the first time since 1977 CPI(M) did not hold an absolute majority of its own in the assembly. CPI(M) had fielded 210 candidates, CPI 13, AIFB 34, RSP 23, RCPI 2, WBSP 4, DSP 2, MFB 1 and BBC 1. A 38-point Left Front election manifesto was presented in March 2001 at CPI(M) West Bengal headquarters, Muzaffar Bhavan, and was signed by Jyoti Basu (CPI(M)), Sailen Dasgupta (CPI(M)), Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (CPI(M), Anil Biswas (CPI(M)), Ashok Ghosh (AIFB), Debabrata Bandyopadhyay (RSP), Manjukumar Majumdar (CPI), Kiranmoy Nanda (SP), Prabodh Chandra Sinha (DSP), Mihir Byne (RCPI), Pratim Chatterjee (MFB) and Sunil Chaudhuri (BBC). A mass rally
25536-472: The works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought , no single, definitive Marxist theory exists. Marxism considers itself to be the embodiment of scientific socialism but does not model an ideal society based on the design of intellectuals , whereby communism is seen as a state of affairs to be established based on any intelligent design; rather, it
25704-557: Was Nepalchandra's cousin. A former student of Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya , Buddhadeb studied Bengali literature at the Presidency College , Kolkata, and secured his B.A. degree in Bengali (Honours). He then joined Adarsh Shankha Vidya Mandir school at Dum Dum as a teacher. Bhattacharjee joined the CPI(M) as a primary member in 1966. Besides taking active part in the food movement, he also supported Vietnam's cause in 1968. In 1968, he
25872-618: Was also created under Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia ; Tito's independent policies led to the Tito–Stalin split and expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform in 1948, and Titoism was branded deviationist . Albania also became an independent Marxist–Leninist state following the Albanian–Soviet split in 1960, resulting from an ideological fallout between Enver Hoxha , a Stalinist, and
26040-427: Was also quite modern. At the top, personal loyalty to Stalin counted for everything. Stalin also created powerful committees, elevated younger specialists, and began major institutional innovations. In the teeth of persecution, Stalin's deputies cultivated informal norms and mutual understandings which provided the foundations for collective rule after his death. For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, Stalin
26208-523: Was believed to be the atheist way of life. In Protestant England , communism was too phonetically similar to the Roman Catholic communion rite , hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists. Friedrich Engels stated that in 1848, at the time when The Communist Manifesto was first published, socialism was respectable on the continent, while communism was not; the Owenites in England and
26376-526: Was born on 1 March 1944 in North Kolkata to a Bengali Brahmin family. His grandfather, Krishnachandra Smrititirtha was a Sanskrit scholar who had composed a priestly manual named Purohit Darpan , which remains popular with Bengali Hindu priests in West Bengal. Buddhadeb's father, Nepalchandra, did not enter into the priesthood and was involved with the family publication, Saraswat Library, devoted to selling Hindu religious material. Poet Sukanta Bhattacharya
26544-473: Was chaotic, and the new cabinet struggled to establish order. The first years of governance was shaky, as the CPI(M) struggled with the notion of managing a communist government within a capitalist framework. Minor coalition partners expressed concern over inviting multinational corporations to invest in West Bengal. In the initial phase of Left Front governance, two key priorities were land reform and decentralisation of administration. On 29 September 1977
26712-511: Was elected as the MLA of Kashipur-Belgachia . Bhattacharjee served as the Minister of Information and Public Relations in the West Bengal Cabinet between 1977 and 1982. In 1982, he lost the assembly elections from Cossipur constituency in 1982 by a slender margin. He was made a permanent invitee to the central committee of CPI(M) in 1984 and was made a member in 1985. Later, in 1987, he became
26880-567: Was elected as the state secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation, the youth wing of the CPI(M), that was later merged into the Democratic Youth Federation of India . He served in the position till 1981, when he was succeeded by Boren Basu. He was mentored by Promode Dasgupta . Bhattacharjee was elected to the state committee of CPI(M) in 1972 and was inducted in the state secretariat in 1982. From 1977 to 1982, he
27048-547: Was held at Brigade Grounds on 25 March 2001 with participation from various Left Front leaders and with former Prime Minister V.P. Singh as special guest. CPI(M) won 142 seats, CPI 7, AIFB 25, RSP 17, WBSP 4, DSP 2 and BBC 1. In 2 seats (Bara Bazar and Hirapur) the Left Front had supported candidates of Rashtriya Janata Dal and in 2 seats (Chowringee and Rash Behari Avenue) the alliance had backed candidates from Janata Dal (Secular) . No RJD nor JD(S) candidates were elected. In Hirapur local CPI(M) cadres rebelled against
27216-415: Was much more efficient, this property became worthless and the mass majority of workers could only survive by selling their labor to make use of someone else's machinery, and making someone else profit. Accordingly, capitalism divided the world between two major classes, namely that of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie . These classes are directly antagonistic as the latter possesses private ownership of
27384-420: Was never established, while some Marxist–Leninists state that it was established only during the Stalin era and Mao era , and then became capitalist states ruled by revisionists ; others state that Maoist China was always state capitalist, and uphold People's Socialist Republic of Albania as the only socialist state after the Soviet Union under Stalin, who first stated to have achieved socialism with
27552-542: Was proposed as a candidate for a Rajya Sabha seat on behalf of the Left Front in 1984, but that move did not go down well with RSP and AIFB. Jyoti Basu and five cabinet minister were sworn in on 27 May 1982. Another 15 cabinet ministers and 22 Ministers of State were sworn in on 2 June 1982. In the 1984 Lok Sabha election , CPI(M) contested 31 seats, RSP 4 seats, AIFB 4 seats and CPI 3 seats. CPI(M) won 18 seats, CPI 3 seats, AIFB 2 seats and RSP 3 seats. The Left Front vote in West Bengal reached 12,296,816 votes (47.6% of
27720-417: Was retained as a member of the Politburo and the Central Committee in the 20th party congress, organised at Kozhikode in 2012. He was relieved of his posts on the Polit Bureau and Central Committee at the 21st party congress, organised at Vishakhapatnam in 2015. The party congress elected him as a special invitee to the Central Committee. However, he was persuaded to remain a member of the state committee and
27888-471: Was that of the production of the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano , in Singur , a small town near Kolkata. Other notable proposals included the country's largest integrated steel plant in Salboni by the Jindal group. Another notable proposed project was a chemical hub at Nayachar , after it had faced resistance from farmers in Nandigram . However, his plans were perceived negatively, and his party, along with its front partners, suffered heavy losses in
28056-407: Was the beginning of the development of vanguardism as an hierarchical party–elite that controls society, which resulted in a split between anarchism and Marxism , and Leninist communism assuming the dominant position for most of the 20th century, excluding rival socialist currents. Other communists and Marxists, especially social democrats who favored the development of liberal democracy as
28224-560: Was to purify communism by removing pro-capitalists and traditionalists by imposing Maoist orthodoxy within the Chinese Communist Party . The movement paralyzed China politically and weakened the country economically, culturally, and intellectually for years. Millions of people were accused, humiliated, stripped of power, and either imprisoned, killed, or most often, sent to work as farm laborers. Mao insisted that those he labelled revisionists be removed through violent class struggle . The two most prominent militants were Marshall Lin Biao of
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