The Communist Party of India (CPI) was founded on 26th December 1925 at the first Party Conference held in Kanpur, with S.V. Ghate as its first General Secretary. Inspired by the Great October Socialist Revolution, a group of brave young patriots, driven by their immense desire to free the country from colonial rule, came together to form the Party with the twin aims of achieving national freedom and building a socialist society.
Before the foundation of the CPI, several small communist groups existed across the country but with limited coordination. The anti-imperialist struggles in India had already gained a new militant dimension through the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920–21, which mobilized workers, peasants, students, and the middle classes to new levels of consciousness. The period also saw a wave of militant working-class uprisings manifested in numerous strikes and struggles, and in 1920, the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded.
It was in this turbulent historic juncture that militant groups of young people—representing workers, peasants, students, and the middle classes—came together in Kanpur during 26th–28th December 1925 to form the Communist Party of India.
CPI was the first political party in India to demand social justice and equality for the untouchables and women. Its militant struggles soon faced repression, culminating in the Meerut Conspiracy Case on 29th March 1929, when CPI leaders across India were arrested and imprisoned for the next four years.
In 1936, several mass organizations emerged with CPI’s leadership: the All India Kisan Sabha, the All India Students Federation, and the Progressive Writers Association, where leading communist writers played a prominent role. Later, in 1943, the Indian People’s Theatre Association was formed as the Party’s cultural and artistic front.
Formation of CPI in Kerala
The Kerala unit of the CPI was established in December 1939 at Parappuram, a hilltop in Pinarayi, about 8 km from Thalassery. Around 90 participants, consisting of communist leaders and prominent workers, attended the secret meeting. Comrade P. Krishnapilla was elected as the first State Secretary.
Until the creation of the State of Kerala in 1957, the region was divided into three parts: Travancore, Cochin, and the British district of Malabar. The conditions of peasants, workers, and common citizens in these regions were miserable. The feudal lords exploited the peasants, and the colonial rulers legalized this exploitation.
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In Travancore, coir factory workers lived and worked under extremely harsh conditions.
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In Malabar, peasants had no rights over their lands and could be evicted at any time by landlords.
This led to the simultaneous rise of anti-feudalist and anti-capitalist movements in Kerala.
One of the first proto-Marxist organizations was the Communist League of Travancore. As early as 1912, Kesari Ramakrishna Pillai published a short biography of Karl Marx in Malayalam—probably the first Marx biography in any Indian regional language.
Mass organizations such as the Kerala Karshaka Sangham (peasants’ union) and the Travancore Labour Association played pivotal roles. In 1934, the coir workers of Alleppey staged their first strike under communist leadership. These struggles, combined with systematic ideological groundwork and consistent intervention in peasant and working-class issues, laid the foundation for the formation of the Kerala unit of CPI in 1939.
Role of CPI in Kerala’s Political Struggles
During the pre-independence era, communists were at the forefront of peasants’ and workers’ agitations across Kerala. These movements acted as a unifying force across the three separate regions—Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar. CPI consistently raised the demand for the creation of a united linguistic state of Kerala.
Even after independence, the plight of peasants and workers remained dire, and the promise of a unified state was not fulfilled. It was CPI that relentlessly led the struggles for its realization. Finally, in 1957, when the linguistic state of Kerala was created, the Communist Party of India came to power through the ballot box, making history by forming the first elected communist government in India.
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