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The Communist Party of India (CPI) (''Bhāratīya Kamyunisṭ Pārṭī'') is a communist party in India. In the Indian Communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Communist Party of India was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by the CPI is 26 December 1925. However, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which separated from the CPI, claims that the party was founded in 1920. ==Communism during the colonial period== The Communist Party of India has officially stated that it was formed in 25 December 1925 at the first Kanpur Party Conference. But as per the version of CPI(M), the Communist Party of India was founded in Tashkent, Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 17 October 1920, soon after the Second Congress of the Communist International. The founding members of the party were M.N. Roy, Evelyn Trent Roy (Roy's wife), Abani Mukherji, Rosa Fitingof (Abani's wife), Mohammad Ali (Ahmed Hasan), Mohammad Shafiq Siddiqui, Rafiq Ahmed of Bhopal and M.P.B.T. Aacharya, and Sultan Ahmed Khan Tarin of North-West Frontier Province.〔Later arrested, tried and sentenced to hard labour in the Moscow-Peshawar Conspiracy Case in 1922; see NWFP and Punjab Government Intelligence Reports, Vols 2 and 3, 1921-1931, at the IOR, British Library, London, UK〕〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 88-89〕〔Ganguly, Basudev. ''S.A. Dange – A Living Presence at the Centenary Year'' in Banerjee, Gopal (ed.) ''S.A. Dange – A Fruitful Life''. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2002. p. 63.〕 The CPI says that there were many communist groups formed by Indians with the help of foreigners in different parts of the world and the Tashkent group was only one of them. The CPI began efforts to build a party organisation inside India. Roy made contacts with Anushilan and Jugantar groups in Bengal. Small communist groups were formed in Bengal (led by Muzaffar Ahmed), Bombay (led by S.A. Dange), Madras (led by Singaravelu Chettiar), United Provinces (led by Shaukat Usmani) and Punjab and Sindh(led by Ghulam Hussain). However, only Usmani became a CPI party member.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 89〕 During the 1920s and the early 1930s the party was badly organised, and in practice there were several communist groups working with limited national coordination. The British colonial authorities had banned all communist activity, which made the task of building a united party very difficult. Between 1921 and 1924 there were three conspiracy trials against the communist movement; First Peshawar Conspiracy Case, Meerut Conspiracy Case and the Cawnpore Bolshevik Conspiracy Case. In the first three cases, Russian-trained muhajir communists were put on trial. However, the Cawnpore trial had more political impact. On 17 March 1924, M.N. Roy, S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Singaravelu Chettiar, Ghulam Hussain and R.C. Sharma were charged, in Cawnpore (now spelt Kanpur) Bolshevik Conspiracy case. The specific pip charge was that they as communists were seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution." Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned, on such a large scale, about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India.〔Ralhan, O.P. (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Political Parties'' New Delhi: Anmol Publications p. 336, Rao. p. 89-91〕 Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M.N. Roy was in Germany and R.C. Sharma in French Pondichéry, and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in Kabul and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for various terms of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to a larger Indian audience.〔 Dange was released from prison in 1927. On 25 December 1925 a communist conference was organised in Kanpur. Colonial authorities estimated that 500 persons took part in the conference. The conference was convened by a man called Satyabhakta. At the conference Satyabhakta argued for a 'National communism' and against subordination under Comintern. Being outvoted by the other delegates, Satyabhakta left both the conference venue in protest. The conference adopted the name 'Communist Party of India'. Groups such as Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan (LKPH) dissolved into the unified CPI.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 92-93〕 The émigré CPI, which probably had little organic character anyway, was effectively substituted by the organisation now operating inside India. Soon after the 1926 conference of the Workers and Peasants Party of Bengal, the underground CPI directed its members to join the provincial Workers and Peasants Parties. All open communist activities were carried out through Workers and Peasants Parties.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 111〕 The sixth congress of the Communist International met in 1928. In 1927 the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The Colonial theses of the 6th Comintern congress called upon the Indian communists to combat the 'national-reformist leaders' and to 'unmask the national reformism of the Indian National Congress and oppose all phrases of the Swarajists, Gandhists, etc. about passive resistance'.〔Saha, Murari Mohan (ed.), ''Documents of the Revolutionary Socialist Party: Volume One 1938–1947''. Agartala: Lokayata Chetana Bikash Society, 2001. p. 21-25〕 The congress did however differentiate between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Indian Swarajist Party, considering the latter as neither a reliable ally nor a direct enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to utilize the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 47-48〕 The congress also denounced the WPP. The Tenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, 3 July 192919 July 1929, directed the Indian communists to break with WPP. When the communists deserted it, the WPP fell apart.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 97-98, 111–112〕 On 20 March 1929, arrests against WPP, CPI and other labour leaders were made in several parts of India, in what became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The communist leadership was now put behind bars. The trial proceedings were to last for four years.〔Ralhan, O.P. (ed.). ''Encyclopaedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 23. Revolutionary Movements (1930–1946)''. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2002. p. 689-691〕〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 96〕 As of 1934, the main centres of activity of CPI were Bombay, Calcutta and Punjab. The party had also begun extending its activities to Madras. A group of Andhra and Tamil students, amongst them P. Sundarayya, were recruited to the CPI by Amir Hyder Khan.〔E.M.S. Namboodiripad. ''The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance''. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 7〕 The party was reorganised in 1933, after the communist leaders from the Meerut trials were released. A central committee of the party was set up. In 1934 the party was accepted as the Indian section of the Communist International.〔Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. ''March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India''. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 25〕 When Indian leftwing elements formed the Congress Socialist Party in 1934, the CPI branded it as Social Fascist.〔 In connection with the change of policy of the Comintern toward Popular Front politics, the Indian communists changed their relation to the Indian National Congress. The communists joined the Congress Socialist Party, which worked as the left wing of Congress. Through joining CSP, the CPI accepted the CSP demand for a Constituent Assembly, which it had denounced two years before. The CPI however analysed that the demand for a Constituent Assembly would not be a substitute for soviets.〔Roy, Samaren. ''M.N. Roy: A Political Biography''. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998. p. 113, 115〕 In July 1937, the first Kerala unit of CPI was founded at a clandestine meeting in Calicut. Five persons were present at the meeting, P. Krishna Pillai E.M.S. Namboodiripad, N.C. Sekhar, K. Damodaran and S.V. Ghate. The first four were members of the CSP in Kerala. The latter, Ghate, was a CPI Central Committee member, who had arrived from Madras.〔E.M.S. Namboodiripad. ''The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance''. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 6〕 Contacts between the CSP in Kerala and the CPI had begun in 1935, when P. Sundarayya (CC member of CPI, based in Madras at the time) met with EMS and Krishna Pillai. Sundarayya and Ghate visited Kerala at several times and met with the CSP leaders there. The contacts were facilitated through the national meetings of the Congress, CSP and All India Kisan Sabha.〔 In 1936–1937, the cooperation between socialists and communists reached its peak. At the 2nd congress of the CSP, held in Meerut in January 1936, a thesis was adopted which declared that there was a need to build 'a united Indian Socialist Party based on Marxism-Leninism'.〔E.M.S. Namboodiripad. ''The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance''. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 44〕 At the 3rd CSP congress, held in Faizpur, several communists were included into the CSP National Executive Committee.〔E.M.S. Namboodiripad. ''The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance''. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 45〕 In Kerala communists won control over CSP, and for a brief period controlled Congress there. Two communists, E.M.S. Namboodiripad and Z.A. Ahmed, became All India joint secretaries of CSP. The CPI also had two other members inside the CSP executive.〔 On the occasion of the 1940 Ramgarh Congress Conference CPI released a declaration called ''Proletarian Path'', which sought to utilise the weakened state of the British Empire in the time of war and gave a call for general strike, no-tax, no-rent policies and mobilising for an armed revolutionary uprising. The National Executive of the CSP assembled at Ramgarh took a decision that all communists were expelled from CSP.〔Ralhan, O.P. (ed.). ''Encyclopedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 24. Socialist Movement in India''. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1997. p. 82〕 In July 1942, the CPI was legalised.〔Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. ''March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India''. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 55〕 Communists strengthened their control over the All India Trade Union Congress. At the same time, communists were politically cornered for their opposition to the Quit India Movement. CPI contested the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections of 1946 of its own. It had candidates in 108 out of 1585 seats. It won in eight seats. In total the CPI vote counted 666 723, which should be seen with the backdrop that 86% of the adult population of India lacked voting rights. The party had contested three seats in Bengal, and won all of them. One CPI candidate, Somanth Lahiri, was elected to the Constituent Assembly.〔M.V. S. Koteswara Rao. ''Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal''. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 207.〕 In 1946 the party launched the Tebhaga movement in Bengal, a militant campaign against feudalism. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Communist Party of India」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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