Indian Trotskyists hold Russian Revolution centenary meeting in Kolkata
By
Ritwik Mitter
18 January 2018
On January 14, the Indian supporters of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) held a public meeting in Kolkata, the state capital of West Bengal, in commemoration of last year’s centenary of the Russian Revolution.
The event, which featured a special screening of Herman Axelbank’s documentary Tsar to Lenin, was the first public meeting held by Trotskyists in Kolkata for more than two decades. Previously known as Calcutta, the city was the main base of the Trotskyist movement during the mid-1940s when the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI), the then Indian sub-continent section of the Fourth International, had a strong presence among workers.
In the weeks before the meeting, ICFI supporters campaigned among workers and students. Thousands of leaflets were distributed at workers’ quarters, including those of railway employees, and among students at Jadavpur University, the Presidency College, Science College and City College.
The meeting was conducted in Bengali and English, streamed live on Facebook and chaired by Palash Roy, who introduced the main speaker Arun Kumar and translated his remarks into Bengali.
Kumar outlined the global context of the ICFI centenary meetings, pointing to the resurgence of class struggle internationally: protests and strikes by workers in Germany, Greece, Britain, Romania, Israel and Tunisia in defence of jobs, working conditions and basic living standards. He also explained that the US and other major imperialist powers have responded to the deepening crisis of the world economy by intensifying their military interventions, posing the danger of…