The political-organisational report had mentioned, "We are proud that a majority of the comrades are with us. But we must realise that compared to the influence and the strength of our new party, the number of members are not as many as we would have like them to be. Countless workers have continued to serve the party despite the emergency situation and rallied around the philosophy of Marxism and Leninism. In the background of this reality, our party’s strength should have increased manifold.

"After two years of continuous inner-party struggle, we have grown and unified our forces keeping the revisionists behind. The foundation of a new progress has been built. The last two years have seen a major increase in the confidence and perseverance of our comrades.

"We have been educated and earned experience through this struggle. But now that our responsibility has increased, it is time for greater initiatives and shedding of complacency. It is now our duty to organise the theoretical, political and organisational philosophies of the new party. But sadly, some in the new party are still somewhat inactive. We have to take special steps to root out this inactivity."

The historic seventh conference began at the Thyagraj Hall and a public rally was held at the Maidan near the Monument which A. K. Gopalan presided over. While I have dealt with the proceedings at the seventh party congress in detail in another chapter, what needs to be pointed out here is that the then state government led by P.C. Sen unleashed a reign of terror by resorting to widespread raids and arrests on the eve of the congress on October 30. Most of our party leadership was arrested under the National Security Act. Those who were arrested without trial were Muzaffar Ahmed, Promod Dasgupta, Harekrishna Konar, Samar Mukherjee, Niranjan Sengupta, Krishnapada Ghosh, Bijoy Modak, Naresh Dasgupta, Benoy Chowdhury, Niren Ghosh, Sukumar Sengupta, Biren Dey Sarkar and Lakshmi Sen. But the state government could not succeed in its plot to upset the congress proceedings which was held with great enthusiasm and encouragment and more than a lakh attended the public rally. Incidentally, Comrade Pramode Dasgupta had been reelected the state party secretary at the 10th State Conference. The State Secretariat had been formed when leaders like Dasgupta and Konar were in jail. This was after the party congress had been held.

I welcomed the delegates form the various other states and decried the arrests of party leaders before the congress. A.K. Gopalan hoisted the party flag. I was one of the members of the committee which was formed to convene the congress.

The congress ended after the party public rally on November 7. There were many quarters which expected that we would fall prey to inner-party squabbles. There was talk that there was no unity among members of the congress held in Calcutta and that we were united only against the Dange loyalists.

These people conveniently ignored the fact that congress had adopted unanimous resolutions about the Communist Party’s immediate and future responsibility and duties.

First, the political-organisational resolution was adopted unanimously. It was also realised before the adoption of the resolution that there was a consensus on the need to weed out the revisionists from the party; there was a commonality in views about the political and economic situations and the role of the Communist Party regarding this.

"For more than eight years, the Communist Party did not have a well-defined working programme. There had been no original plan or document on which the Communist Party should have worked. The seventh congress has overcome this major weakness and unanimously adopted a working agenda. This had been discussed at all levels and in all districts and states for the last six months. The delegates had been chosen from the various state conferences and the working agenda was discussed by them in a disciplined fashion and in depth for three days. The most significant aspect of this draft agenda is the unanimity.

"Thus a new unified party has been established through a process which has been political, work-oriented and organisationally stable. There is no doubt that this unanimity will be maintained in all discussions held within the party in the months to come."

The amendments, which were adopted in the draft resolution, were meant only to improve the originals. It had been apparent that events in the Communist Party of Soviet Union had not affected working of the congress though some people were trying to spread this disinformation. On the contrary, it was firmly established that the Communist Party was now adopting its political and other resolutions with the Indian context in mind.

The party membership at the previous Vijaywada congress, stood at 1,76,000 while the Calcutta congress had the support of 1,04,000 members. In the April of 1964, an appeal had been made by 32 National Council members after which these 1,04,000 members had renewed their faith in us.

This piece of statistics "only confirms that the Calcutta congress is the real Communist Party and that the Dange coterie does not have any right to say the opposite."

The Calcutta congress elected P. Sundaraiyya as the national general secretary. After the conclusion of the congress, P. Sundaraiyya made statement which was distributed on November 14, 1964. The statement said:

"On October 29, 1964, the West Bengal government arrested 31 of our leaders under the National Security Act. This was done with an eye to create disunity among the Communist ranks. But we accepted this as a challenge. The congress carried on its work without any interruption despite this provocative action by the state government. All the delegates reacted with a resolve despite the tactics of the state government and adopted all the resolutions without much interruption. On November 7, there was a huge gathering of over one lakh where the speeches of the various leaders were heard with rapt attention. This was the perfect rejoinder to the state government’s oppressive measures. The day is not far off when those who have been misled by the Dange coterie will return to the mainstream. The Dange loyalists will remain a party only in the signboards.

"For the last two years, we have been faced with this poisonous disinformation campaign. The government had also worked in tandem with these campaign-mongers. Their aim has been singular: to disrupt the functioning of a democratic, people’s movement which has resolved to fight the anti-people policies of the government. The Dange loyalists, with scant regard for the welfare of the people, has helped the government in this dangerous game. However, despite all this, the majority of the party members rallied round the seventh congress. It has been proved beyond doubt that the progress of the Communist party remained unhindered. The plot has been unsuccessful because this foundation has been based on lies and it has once again been established that the working class and the people in general have saluted the Communist Party’s effort. We believed and reposed our confidence in the fact that our party will move closer to the people and through our political and other progress, we will be able to wean away a majority section of the Indians from the reactionary forces. We will be stronger in the day to come".

I have not mentioned this earlier but the presidium set up to convene the congress comprised A.K. Gopalan, Nagy Reddy and myself; Nagi Reddy was to later become a leader of the Naxalite movement. A 41-man central committee, including three members of the control commission, was set up after the seventh congress. Thirty-four of them were elected at the congress itself while the rest were to be filled up later. A nine-member Politburo was formed and P. Sundaraiyya was unanimously chosen the national general secretary.

Those who were elected to the central committee were :-

Muzaffar Ahmed, Promode Dasgupta, Hareykrishna Konar and Jyoti Basu from West Bengal, P. Sundaraaiyya, M. Basavapunniaha, Hanumant Rao, N. Prasad Rao from Andhra Pradesh, E.M.S Namboodiripad, A. K. Gopalan, E.K. Nayanar, Achutanandan from Kerala, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Jagjit Singh Lailapuri from Punjab, P Rammurthy from Tamil Nadu, M.R. Venkataraman, Balsubramanium, N. Shankaraiya from Tamil Nadu, Achintya Bhattacharya from Assam, Ramchandra Shroff from Jammu & Kashmir, S.B. Srivastava from Bihar, Sankardayal Tewari, Shibkumar Misra from Uttar Pradesh, Dinkar Mehta from Gujarat, M.A. Upadhyay from Karnataka, Bonomali Das from Orrisa, B.T. Randive, Kolhatkar and Paruleker from Maharashtra. Central control commission : Abdul Halim, Dr. Bhag Sing, C. Venkatraman.

Politburo : P.Sundraiyya, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, P. Rammurthy, Pramode Dasgupta, M. Basavapunniah, A.K.Gopalan, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Jyoti Basu and B.T. Ranadive. There were nine members.

The Declaration

The declaration of the seventh congress went thus:

"The seventh congress of the Communist Party of India declares that all those who assembled for the convention are the real representatives of the Communist movement. The Dange group does not have any right to call itself the Communist Party of India.

"A total of 422 delegates represented 1,04,421 members throughout the country; this constitutes 60 per cent of the total members who attended the sixth congress.

"Conferences had been organised at the regional district and provincial levels before this congress. A scrutiny has revealed that 14 out of 19 units in the states have joined this congress. Nine of those who had joined hands with the Dange group have also attended this congress.

"We also aware that a majority of those who have not participated in this congress have not listed themselves as members of the Dange group either. We are sure that those members who are attached to the Dange group will reconsider their position. The first phase of the struggle against the revisionist policies of the Dange loyalists have begun with this congress...."