Degeneration of CPM leadership

In our country the Communist Party of India is the second political party to be launched about nine decades back only after the Indian National Congress. According to the ‘ultra’ nationalist CPI, the party was founded on December 26, 1925 but the CPM claims that it was founded in 1920 in Moscow. The founding members of the party were M.N.Roy, Evelina Trench Roy, Abani Mukherji, Rosa Fitingof (Mukherjee’s wife), Mohammad Ali (Ahmed Hasan), Mohammad Shafiq Siddiqui and M.P.B.T. Acharya. In 1964, the CPI split gave way to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Its founder Politbureau members were P.Sundaraiya, B.T.Ranadive, EMS Namboodripad, A.K.Gopalan, Pramod Das Gupta, Jyoti Basu, M.Basavapunniah, P.Ramamurthy and Harkishan Singh Surjeet. ‘Navaratnas’ indeed by their calibre, struggles and sacrifices.

After 1967 election and CPM led coalition Ministry assuming office in West Bengal, the armed rebellion launched by Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Nagi Reddy (AP) in Naxalbari Taluk gave birth to Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) popularly known as Naxalites. Since then, the ideological war within the faction resulted in the sprouting of CPI (ML) from A to Z. So fragmented they were that there was even a group in Kanyakumari district christening themselves after the Communist ruler of Albenia (the only atheist state in the history of the world) Enwer Hoxa (pronounced as Anwar Hoja).

Although it is about 90 years since founding and innumerable struggles and sacrifices by its leaders and cadre (like the Telangana armed struggle immediately after independence in which 5,000 cadre were killed), the Communist parties have notable presence only in three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Whereas in Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea or Cuba, the communist parties led by V.I.Lenin, Mao Tse Tsung, Ho Chi Minn, Kim Il Sung and Fidel Castro respectively could successfully accomplish revolution and found socialist states. Why the communist parties in India could not advance?

The first requisite for a communist movement is to identify the ruling class/ classes so that they could rally the oppressed classes for the class struggles leading to a revolution, overthrow of the ruling classes and establishment of a proletarian dictatorship for the building of a socialist state. While the classification of classes was relatively easier in other countries, it was cumbersome in Indian context which had a unique caste system which predated class-based societies by centuries. The communists have failed to take cognizance of this concrete difference obtaining in India. Obviously their tactics and strategy yielded little gains.

However they realized this fact too late after the Anti-Mandal Commission recommendation on reservation agitations by casteist forces in North India, when they lost control over students movement in prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University etc., and trade unions in North India.

Besides this weakness, the communist parties also sharply differed on the assessment of ruling classes in India. The CPI programme says it is a bourgeoisie- landlord state led by national bourgeoisie and advocates the tactics of alliance with the national bourgeoisie in the struggle against imperialism. Calling this as revisionism; especially after its theoretician S.A.Dange advocating the line of alliance with the Congress Party after independence, the breakaway group CPI (M) called it a bourgeois-landlord state led by the big bourgeoisie with whom no compromise but struggle by the working class was advocated. Terming the Congress Party as the representative of the big bourgeoisie they advocated alliance with non-Congress parties in electoral politics. The CPI (ML) and all other Naxalite groups to Maoists now, call it a comprador bourgeoisie-led feudal state against whom immediate armed struggle is the only way to overthrow it.

While in the post-Emergency period the CPI gave up its earlier stance of alliance with the Congress, with the advent of globalization and liberalization the CPI(M) too had to dilute its uncompromising struggle against the big bourgeoisie. Although in practice both parties have deviated from their party programmes they have not officially revised them. The rise of communal forces led by the BJP also had necessitated changes in their political tactical lines.

All those shortcomings and inherent weakenings apart, the honesty, integrity, civilized and cultured attitude of the leaderships of the CPI and CPM were certainly beyond questions and they were highly regarded and respected by almost all political parties particularly the Dravidian movement and the DMK in spite of political differences now and then. In political discourse the leaders of both communist parties also maintained dignity, decency and culture.

But ever since the CPI and CPM parted ways with the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu consequent to their withdrawal of support to the UPA government at the Centre following Indo-US Nuclear Power Pact, the statements and speeches of the leaderships of both parties started drifting away from the past traditions. As for the CPI was concerned it was not much surprising, given the present incumbent in Tamil Nadu State Secretary post who is more a demagogue than a communist party leader. But the deviation which during the recent election campaign saw the degeneration of the CPM’s national and state level leaderships was so appalling to not only political circles but was also undigestible for most of the cadre of the CPM as they vent out their feelings in personal talks. Chief Minister and DMK President Kalaignar had a great regard and respect for CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat that it was first hard for him to believe whether it was Karat’s speeches that were reported in their party organ ‘Theekadir’. Usually the CPM, claiming to speak for and take up the issues of people, launches its criticism of any ruling party by listing anti-people measure taken by the government, failures to meet the needs of the people, schemes and projects which had not helped the people etc., But Karat could speak nothing against the achievements claimed by the DMK, fulfillment of all electoral promises and so many of its schemes, industrial development, employment generation etc. He could not deny the fact that every family in the state had benefited by the schemes of the DMK government. He could not point out a single case of corruption or scandal in the five year rule of the DMK.

On the other hand it was only the hullabaloo about spectrum allocation issue concerning the Centre and which has no relevance for people in assessing the performance of the state government, that he and his colleagues were making. If only the names of Prakash Karat and State Secretary G. Ramakrishnan were obscured, their speeches read like that of Jayalalitha. For the first time in the history of the CPM, its present leaders launched filthy, disgusting and undignified personal attacks on Kalaignar and his family members. Even at the height of their political opposition against Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, CPM leaders never descended to the levels of Ram Manohar Lohias, Fernandeses and a host of Jan Sangh and BJP leaders leveling personal attacks on Nehru-Gandhi family. Their opposition was based only on political and ideological planks. But Ramakrishnan had issued a statement that his party’s views are always based on political issues only without any indecent remark or character assassination. He added that obscene languages are unknown to their leaders. A random reading of the issues of ‘Theekadir’ of the last one month will disprove his claim. His contention that their leaders restrain from using obscene language has turned into an empty declaration as evidenced from reports in dailies. Anil Basu, a veteran CPM leader and MP is alleged to have commented about Mamata Banerjee in obscene manner which was condemned by all including West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The Election Commission has threatened action against another veteran CPM leader and Minister Sushanta Ghosh who has spoken of Mamata Banerjee in an obscene manner at East Midnapore which has been captured on videograph. ‘The CPM has become morally bankrupt’ was the retort of Mamata Banerjee. Kerala Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan was also reported to have spoken ill of women. Again both Karat and Ramakrishnan accuse the DMK of using money power to win the election. This has boomeranged on their party with Mamata Banerjee accusing them of blatantly using money and muscle power. She had alleged that CPM MP Ramachandra Dom was involved in money distribution to voters when the people surrounded him and kept him under their custody for a while.

The CPM State Secretary might feign forgetting it but people of Tamil Nadu and especially CPM cadre have not forgotten some incidents in the Tamil Nadu Assembly during Jayalalitha regime. When CPM member late J.Hemachandran hailed the successive victory of his party in West Bengal, Jayalalitha intervened and observed that the reason for CPM victory was booth capturing and rigging using their muscle power. When CPM members opposed salary increase for legislators she crudely observed that they opposed because their salaries went to party coffers and they were living with the ‘wages’ paid by their party. On another occasion she intervened during the speech of Hemachandran and in an authoritarian manner said her government would pay no heed to the charges of the CPM and directed her Ministers not to reply to them. On another day as though it was a public platform she joked in the Assemby that even before the discovery of tin (‘thagaram’ in Tamil) the communists discovered hundis. If the CPM had swallowed all these ignominies and put aside her fascist rule when about 2 lakh government employees were dismissed overnight and arrested and jailed thousands of them using draconian TESMA Act, and joined the ADMK alliance for the crumbs of few seats, it is purely electoral opportunism. They have forfeited their claim of a working class party.

Strangely the CPM leaders have found out that cinema is a people’s basic issue and went about tom toming that Kalaignar’s family had monopolized film industry. Kalaignar has given a fitting reply to it. Can anybody monopolise film industry where success of any film depended purely on quality and appeal to the audience. It is during the last few years that scores of new producers, actors, directors et al have successfully entered into the Tamil film industry and carved nitches themselves. Number of small budget movies featuring new faces had been box office hits. Sheer statistics disprove such critics. What a fall for a communist party to project this an election issue?

The CPM leaders insist that the people needed a change of government. The essence of the theory and philosophy of Marxism is that ‘everything changeth and change is unchangeable. ‘But the significant difference of Marxism from other philosophies so far is that ‘change is not cyclic but spirallic’ (i.e. progressive.) That is explained in detail in dialectical materialism and historic materialism by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Certainly even a hardcore CPM loyalist cannot suggest that bringing back Jayalalitha regime will be a progressive change. In a similar situation in 1971, when the CPM leadership found both ‘Indicate’ (Congress-I) and ‘Syndicate’ (Congress-O) as unacceptable, they floated a Third Front. Similarly if the CPM assessed that the DMK government should be changed and found ADMK as not an alternative they should have floated a Third Front to uphold Marxist theory of change.

It is only Jayalalitha and G. Ramakrishnan who have demanded that the Kalaignar TV should be taken off the air following the filing of the CBI additional chargesheet in the spectrum case. It is understandable that Jayalalitha echoed this fascist voice of Hitler banning freedom of expression. But can a communist echo Hitler’s voice? Marxism equals freedom of expression. Karl Marx was a strong champion of freedom of expression and wrote many articles in his columns in ‘The New York Daily’ and other papers condemning censorship. It was Marx who had said that “Censorships can never be morally right even if it were to be legal as much as slavery can never be morally right.”

So, even according to Karl Marx and Marxism, the present CPM leadership – both at the national and state levels – are morally not right and degenerated – deviated and declined from the greatest ideology and philosophy of mankind – Marxism!