Welcome to the Website of CPI(M) - West Bengal State Committee

The CPI(M) was formed at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of India held in Calcutta from October 31 to November 7, 1964. The CPI(M) was born in the struggle against revisionism and sectarianism in the communist movement at the international and national level, in order to defend the scientific and revolutionary tenets of Marxism-Leninism and its appropriate application in the concrete Indian conditions. The CPI(M) combines the fine heritage of the anti-imperialist struggle and the revolutionary legacy of the undivided Communist Party which was founded in 1920. Over the years, the Party has emerged as the foremost Left force in the country.

The CPI(M) has grown steadily since its formation in 1964. The membership of the Party, which was 118,683 at the time of its formation, has grown to 10,42,287 in 2009. In West Bengal, the membership now stands at 2,99,350. The Party has sought to independently apply Marxism-Leninism to Indian conditions and to work out the strategy and tactics for a people's democratic revolution in order to move towards socialism, which can transform the lives of the Indian people. The CPI(M) is engaged in bringing about this basic transformation by carrying out a programme to end imperialist, big bourgeois and landlord exploitation. The CPI(M) as the leading Left party is committed to build a Left and democratic front which can present a real alternative to the existing bourgeois-landlord policies.

In West Bengal, the CPI(M) carries forward the revolutionary traditions of the state from the pre-independence era. A large number of freedom fighters from Bengal became committed Marxists and joined the communist movement in the course of the freedom struggle, later a significant section of this generation joined the CPI(M). At the same time, the land struggles of the peasantry in Bengal in the form of the Tebhaga movement was led by the communist party. This movement was further carried forward through active leadership of the CPI(M) in the state. Since its inception, the CPI(M) provided leadership to the class and mass movements of all toiling sections of the Bengal population, starting from the workers' movement, food movement, students' movements, teachers' movement, refugee movement, peasant movement, women's movement etc, which led to growth of influence of CPI(M) among the people of the state. The ruling classes in Bengal and India in order to thwart this advancement of the people under the leadership of the CPI(M) launched a vicious semi-fascist terror against the party and the people during 1972-77. However, it is a tribute to the people of West Bengal that they not only thwarted such designs of the ruling classes but emerged victorious through the formation of the Left Front Government in 1977.

The Left Front government headed by the CPI(M) has been uninterruptedly elected in West Bengal since 1977. The Left Front Government is the result of the heroic struggles of the people of West Bengal under the leadership of the CPI(M). After the sweeping victory of the Left Front in 1977, Com. Jyoti Basu became the Chief Minister of the Left Front government. Under the leadership of Com. Jyoti Basu, the Left Front government embarked on land reforms on a scale unprecedented in the country; it instituted a panchayati raj system which was radical for its times, which empowered the rural poor, small peasants and poor farmers who faced hundreds of years of feudal exploitation thereby changing the power structure in rural Bengal. This radical initiative of the Left Front Government changed the agrarian impasse in Bengal agriculture and launched the state towards a higher growth trajectory. At the same time the Left Front Government tries to project policies, which are pro-people as an alternative to the policy framework of the bourgeois-landlord state. The Left Front Government in West Bengal is a bulwark against neo-liberal and imperialist policies in the country and marks the biggest achievement of the Left movement in the country. West Bengal is the most advanced outpost of democracy and secularism in India.