Karat reprises his roles at the time of post-war upsurge which began in 1945. “The Tebhaga movement, the Punnapra Vayalar struggle, the Tripura struggle, the RIN mutiny, the campaign for the release of the INA prisoners and the historic Telengana armed struggle... all took place in this period. The Communist Party emerged as the spearhead of the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles between 1945 and 1948. This was a period when, in the militant struggles against feudalism and the British rulers, thousands laid down their lives. It is in these areas that the Communist movement still holds major influence”, says Karat.

Car trouble

The party organ has raised the issue of the plight of US workers in the automobile manufacturing industry, while explaining what ails the American car makers. “US workers are today being made to pay for the past sins of their corporate employers and of the American state. Even as workers are being asked to accept lower wages and benefits, managerial remunerations continue to be obscenely high, one way or another, even in bad times. The president of Delphi, now under bankruptcy, was paid a bonus of $2.75 million against a salary of $1.15 million! And 460 executives on salaries of around $475,000 were paid bonuses of $450,000 even as their firms were posting huge losses,” says an article ‘The US Car Industry: One Down, Two To Go’.

As for the US automobile industry and its ‘Big 3 in the Detroit belt’ — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler — stark evidence of its decline was the decision last week by DaimlerChrysler to put its US arm, Chrysler Motor Corporation, up for sale and offers made for it of around US$ 4.5 billion (Rs 20,000 crore). “Peanuts really, when you consider that Chrysler, always the smallest of the Big 3, once had a total market capitalisation equivalent to the GDP of some countries such as Australia”, says the article.

... contd.