Shripad Amrit Dange - Collaborating With Congress

Collaborating With Congress

The issue whether to support Congress or not bedevilled the undivided Communist Party right from the year of independence, 1947, when the then general secretary P.C. Joshi strongly spoke in favor of it. Joshi was marginalized for this, yet the question persisted and was one of the reasons for the CPI split. It was increasingly becoming clear that anti-Congress faction, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was stronger of the two groups.

In the late 1960s, however, the mood within the Communist Party of India turned strongly anti-Congress. In the Bombay party congress in 1968, the CPI took the decision of forging an anti-Congress front. This had resulted in collaborating with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for a short while. Soon differences between both Parties again came out in the open. From 1970 onwards Communist Party of India started once again working with the Congress. Dange was one of the principal architects of this union.