Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)

Ideology

SUCI(C) is a communist party in India, and follows a Marxist-Leninist ideological line formulated by Shibdas Ghosh. The party rejects political ideas such as glasnost and perestroika as revisionist, and claims to uphold the original intent of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and the thoughts of Ghosh.

SUCI(C) holds that India is a capitalist country with monopoly capitalism and imperialist trends. In line with that analysis, the party works toward a socialist revolution, rather than a people's democratic revolution (like the Communist Party of India (Marxist)), a national democratic revolution (like the Communist Party of India) or a new democratic revolution (like the Naxalites).

SUCI(C) leadership emphasises the qualitative upliftment of party cadres, workers of mass-organisations and supporters, by both theoretical study of Marxism-Leninism-Shibdas Ghosh Thought and the practical application of such knowledge in the day-to-day life of party workers. In various publications of the party, SUCI upholds the proletarian cultural standard, which, according to the leadership, should be achieved by the cadres, before they can lead the masses in the Socialist Revolution.

The 1st SUCI Party Congress was held in Kolkata in 1988. The 2nd party congress was held from 11–17 November 2009 in Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi attended by thousands of participants from 22 states and observers from several foreign countries. The current political line of the party was formulated in the 2nd party congress. The party's name was changed from Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) to Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) [SUCI (C)] at the second party congress.

Parliamentary politics

From its inception, SUCI took part in parliamentary elections and was part of the United Front governments in West Bengal in 1967–1969 and 1969–1970 together with CPI(M) and others. The party had a Member of Parliament (MP) in the 4th Lok Sabha from Jaynagar. The SUCI had presence in the legislative assemblies of Assam, Bihar and Orissa at various times. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections SUCI launched 56 candidates, 30 of them from West Bengal. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections SUCI declared 40 candidates from 12 states.

As of 2009, Tarun Mondol, representing Jaynagar in West Bengal, is the party's sole MP. After 2014 Loksabha and 2016 Bidhansabha Elections, it has no MP or MLA from India.

Current situation

SUCI(C) members live in communes wherein they lead a simple life style. Day-to-day upkeep of the commune and the well being of the children of party members living in the communes are taken care by the shared efforts of party members. Major income of the party is from box collection in the streets and house to house collection; members who are employed hand in their salaries to the party. The party contests elections with the money collected through this transparent fund raising method.

The stronghold of the party is in the South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, in areas such as Jaynagar Mazilpur where it controls certain municipalities.

SUCI(C) is actively involved in the ongoing anti-Special Economic Zone movements in India. The most notable of these movements that the party is active in are:

The party has formed a political front in West Bengal with All India Trinamool Congress to fight the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on an agreement that the alliance will maintain equidistance from the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party won the Joynagar constituency in the 2009 general elections with a majority of 53,676 votes.

Campaigns

The Gherao principle was introduced as a formal mode of protest in the trade union sector by Subodh Banarjee, who was a central committee member of SUCI and the PWD and Labor Minister in the 1967 and 1969 United Front Governments in West Bengal, respectively.

One of the major campaigns of the party in West Bengal has been its agitations against the educational policy of the Left Front state government. The decision of the Left Front government to remove the English language from primary education sparked a mass movement led by the SUCI for the reinstatement of English.

Below is a chronological list of campaigns organised by the SUCI(C) in West Bengal:

Leadership

Provash Ghosh is the current leader of the party. He was elected as the General Secretary of the party by the central committee on 4 March 2010.

After Shibdas Ghosh's death in 1976, Nihar Mukherjee, a co-founder of SUCI, became the General Secretary. Mukherjee died of cardiac arrest on 18 February 2010 at Kolkatta.

The central committee members of the party are:

The incumbent central committee and politburo was elected in the 2nd party congress.

Secretaries of the State Committees of the party are:

Secretaries of the State Organising Committees are:

The MP of the party is:

The MLA of the party is:

Former Legislators of SUCI(C)

The former ministers of SUCI in West Bengal:

The former MP of the party was:

The former MLAs of the party were:

Mass organisations

The principal mass organisations of SUCI(C) are:

Publications

The central organ of SUCI(C) is the Proletarian Era, an English forthnighly published from Kolkata.

The state committees of the party publishes:

Criticism

In 2005 Probodh Purkait, a SUCI MLA who represented Kultali constituency for 30 years, was convicted for murder and sentenced to life term by the Calcutta High Court. SUCI denounced the court ruling as a 'conspiracy of CPI(M)'. Supreme Court of India on 27 February 2007 dismissed the appeal filed by Prabodh Purkait against the judgment passed by the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court. In April 2008, an SUCI leader Bidhan Chatterjee committed suicide citing the corruption in SUCI as the reason for his suicide. In a letter sent before his death, he accused that the SUCI leaders were "hobnobbing with real estate promoters and foreign-funded NGOs". However, Sri. Provash Ghosh (General Secretary, SUCI(C)) has countered these allegations.

They are often criticized by the other Left parties for supporting a nondemocratic anti-communist party like TMC, to defeat the Left Government. After breaking the alliance with TMC, couple of years later, they regretted for supporting the TMC led government.