Indian communism

Though Communism has ceased to exist in Europe, it is still found in the Third World where conditions favouring revolutionary change persist. The history of the Indian Communist Movement is a significant illustration of how, despite losing its global status, Communism has survived in India, albeit in a different form. The difference lies primarily in the fact that this doctrine has been democratized. Ross Mallick traces this process of democratization, as well as the institutionalization of revolutionary Marxism, through this readable history of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), i.e. the CPI (M). By taking to parliamentary democracy and succeeding electorally, the CPI (M) collaborated with a privileged class base which had a vested interest in supporting the party. Engrossed in its little victories of parliamentary democracy, the CPI (M) not only neglected the numerically substantial lower classes - representing their mass base - but also failed to tackle the question of underdevelopment or create conditions for revolutionary change. Dr. Mallick suggests that Indian Communism's collaboration with the upper classes, and the institutionalization of the CPI (M), led to the marginalization of this ideology throughout the country.