Communist Party of India (Marxist)
The Communist Party of India ( Marxist) - abbreviated CPI ( M) or CPM often - is the largest left party of India. In the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2004 she came to 43 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house, and even better that you achieved in 1999 (33 seats). The mandates were won mainly in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, where the CPI ( M) leads the Left Front, which includes the Communist Party of India (CPI ), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP ) of the Forward Bloc (FB ) as well as different regional partners belong.
As the Indian Communists split in 1964, mainly due to intra-party disputes as to the positioning of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962 at a party congress in two fractions, the later CPI made (M) the wings, which was based more on the Chinese model, while the CPI to the specifications of Moscow followed - that are specifically Maoist forces 1967-69 by CPI (M) seceded and various known under the collective term Naxalite organizations were founded. At least since the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the free-market reforms in China, the ideological differences but have declined in importance. Since the late 1990s, is repeatedly spoken of a possible overcoming of the communist split in the near future.
By far the most prominent representative of the party was Jyoti Basu, who more than 23 years was Chief Minister of West Bengal and was proposed after the parliamentary elections in India in 1996 by the parties of the victorious United Front coalition unsuccessfully for the office of Indian Prime Minister. From 1977 to 2011 ruled in West Bengal the Left Front, led by the Marxists continuously - in view of the transient nature of many state governments in India a rare phenomenon. The CPI (M) and its partners had succeeded in advancing the agricultural reform in West Bengal clearly and install social security systems. The geared to the needs of the broad masses Policy under Basu and his successor in the office of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya prime minister had the party brings lasting high potential supporters. In the small state of Tripura, run by the Marxist alliance also ruled for several legislatures, in Kerala, the Left Front has changed since the 1970s in elections effectively with the Congress Party as the respective winners from.
In the spring of 2005, there were at the party a generational change in leadership. After the health-related withdrawal Harkishan Singh Surjeets by the Office of the Secretary Prakash Karat, the delegates chose as his successor. This was reinforced entered in previous years, as an important member of the management team in appearance.