The bold and frank interview of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the CPI(M) Chief Minister of Left Front-ruled West Bengal, in Hindustan Times of July 19, should raise widespread interest in issues on effectiveness of communism as political idealism in the 21st century. The world is changing, communists are changing and we can't stick to our old dogmas, the chief minister reportedly asserted. After the farm sector reforms ran their course, the next logical step for the state called for industrialization and, the chief minister has rightly maintained that here the state has to follow what other states are doing, which effectively would involve invitation to industrialists and capitalists. He has claimed, according to the report, that if he were not receptive to industrial projects, they would go to other states, as competition to garner investment is intense among the states. On Nandigram episode, the chief minister candidly admitted that the government failed to reach the masses.
The industrial investment in the state was languishing for decades, notwithstanding stable government for a record three decades period. Only recently, as a result of a radical comrade Buddhadeb, backed by communal harmony and good law and order the investors are returning to the state. Incidentally, the chief minister could have treaded the path laid down in CPI(M) philosophy and abhorred capitalists and MNCs, but then the state would have continued to fall behind other states in progress. Obviously, Buddhadeb needs to be complimented for taking the bull by horn in the interest of the state.
West Bengal needs more manufacturing, more investment and more FDI and there are no shortcuts to industrialization without this. For this, big business has to be welcomed as also MNCs. The only exception, according to the chief minister, would be retail trade where MNCs would not be permitted in the state. While several factors make investment climate congenial, IEMs filed for projects in the state shot up five-fold between 2002-03 and 2006-07, matching the growth in acknowledged investment-friendly majors like Maharashtra and Gujarat, though the pace falls short of the accomplishment by resource-rich Orissa and Chhattisgarh. Even the state economy growth at 7+ per cent a year between 2001-02 and 2004-05 matches the all-India feat.
CPI(M) has a mandate to bring about basic transformation in society by carrying out programmes to end imperialist, big bourgeois and landlord exploitation. While West Bengal has charted a new path, Kerala and Tripura the other leftist-ruled states, have not gambled into such radical breaks from leftist ideologies.
Lastly, China and Russia too have changed the traditional concept of communism and embraced traces of various proportions of capitalism in industrialization. So it would seem, bury Marxism and Leninism, and yet long live communist regimes!

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