The 11th International meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties is being held in New Delhi this week, at a time when the Left in India is facing its worst-ever crisis and is fast losing support even in traditional strongholds like West Bengal and Kerala. CPI National Secretary D. Raja speaks to Manoj C.G about the challenges before the Left and the need for bringing about a change in the functioning style of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government.

What is the significance of this meeting?

This is the 11th international meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties. It is being held in India for the first time. And it comes against the backdrop of the global recession, which has once again shown that capitalist economy is a crisis-ridden economy and crisis is in its inherent nature. So the question is, what is the alternative? We strongly believe that socialism is the genuine alternative.

But socialism as an economic and political model had failed, and we have seen it in Soviet Union and eastern Europe?

It is true that the model of socialism suffered setbacks and reverses in the Soviet Union. But that doesn’t mean that socialism will suffer the same fate in other countries. What happened in Soviet Union doesn’t necessarily happen in other countries.

How can you advocate socialism when it has already proved to be a failure?

The basic feature of socialism, which is welfare of the people, has not failed. The ideology of socialism is still relevant. In Soviet Union it happened because of some other reasons like the role of the state and contradictions in the political structure.

... contd.