Calcutta, Nov. 7: All the vices that power can induce in 30 years has crept into the CPM, the party’s Bengal secretary admitted today.

Biman Bose went on to list some of them — corruption, nepotism, personal gratification, factionalism and craving for power — while addressing Calcutta district committee cadre who had assembled to commemorate the November revolution in Russia where the communists were plagued by the same vices as idealism got corroded by absolute power.

“Some people have joined the party hoping that it would be a passport to jobs and other opportunities for per- sonal benefits. Many flaunt the party membership to demand preference in school and college jobs,” Bose said.

The party appears to be suffering from the influx of such self-seekers as obtaining membership has become easier now. “At least 10 per cent of the new entrants are ideologically and politically unfit to be our members. How many of the 31,500 members in the city have gone through the party constitution? Let us swear, how many of us can rise above personal interests?” he asked.

Asking party committees to check personal backgrounds of membership aspirants, Bose said: “Don’t choose them from the types who want to be whole-timers just because of unemployment.”

He did not mention the Bally incident in which CPM workers were arrested for harassing a housewife and beating up her husband, but decried the increasing involvement of party cadre in real estate and supply of building materials.

“I heard people are asked to buy cement from one, brick and iron rods from another. Later, it is found that party leaders are behind these businesses,” said Bose, also a party politburo member.

The party used to go to the people earlier, now it is the other way round.

Feuds within have assumed “cancerous” proportions as some leaders are “ruining party democracy for personal gain”.

A split Opposition is seeing the CPM through in the state, the leader suggested, saying “a divided party will be in more trouble” as the Opposition parties close ranks.

“Be respectful and sympathetic towards toiling people.” As the CPM became appealing to “those who had never voted for the party earlier” — the middle class — it lost touch with its original supporters.

This is not the first time that a CPM leader has expressed concern. The late Benoy Choudhury had described the Bengal government itself as one run by “contractors”.