Prakash Karat (CPIM General Secretary)
WE are observing the
birth centenary
year of Comrade M Basavapunnaiah which began on December 14,
2013. M
Basavapunnaiah was one of the key leaders of the Communist
Party. Like many
leaders of his generation, MB made an all-sided contribution
to the development
of the Communist movement in the country. From being a student
activist he
directly joined the Communist Party in 1934 unlike many of his
contemporaries
who came to the Communist Party after being in the Congress
and the Congress
Socialist Party.
MB played an
important role in the
development of the Communist movement in Andhra Pradesh and
was part of the
leadership of the Telangana peasants’ armed struggle.
Subsequently, he made a
major contribution in the inner party struggle which led to
the foundation of
the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He had a unique role
in shaping the
ideological viewpoint of the CPI(M). This is the aspect which
will be focused
in this article.
The Indian Communist
movement which
had its beginnings in the 1920s worked within the framework of
the guidance
provided by the Comintern and later the CPSU. Thus it heavily
relied on the
Soviet Marxist apparatus for its ideological sustenance. While
this was natural
in the earlier period of the party, it also became the main
source for a mechanical
application of Marxist understanding to Indian conditions at
times and later
provided sustenance for the revisionist theory and practice
which crept into
the Communist Party.
INNER-PARTY
STRUGGLE
A struggle developed
within the
Communist Party in the post-independence era on the question
of the path of the
Indian revolution and the strategy and tactics to be adopted.
This struggle and
praxis helped the “Left” communists to come out of the sterile
framework which
existed.
The CPI(M) was a
product of this
inner-party struggle. MB was part of the leading core which
conducted this
struggle. All the inner-party documents leading up to the
split in the Party
saw MB as a co-author along with leaders like P Sundarayya,
Harkishan Singh
Surjeet, B T Ranadive, P Ramamurthy and others. They set out
the positions which
constituted a rejection of the class collaborationist line
advocated by a
section of the leadership and which was supported by the CPSU.
In the early 1960s,
differences
between the CPSU and the CPC became sharp and bitter. The
polemics between the
two major parties stimulated the ideological debate in India
too. It
became intertwined with the struggle within the CPI about the
programme and the
strategy to be followed.
In the ideological
battle to appraise
Marxism-Leninism through the eyes of the Indian Communists
engaged in building
the communist party and to apply Marxist theory to the
concrete conditions in
India – this was a process, protracted and often torturous
that the CPI(M) went
through.
M Basavapunnaiah
made a distinctive
contribution to these inner-party debates and subsequently in
the shaping of
the ideological world view of the CPI(M).
PARTY
PROGRAMME
The decade long
inner-party struggle
on the question of strategy culminated in the adoption of two
programmes by the
CPI(M) and the CPI in 1964 at their respective Congresses. The
7th Congress of
the CPI(M) was held in Kolkata between October 31 to November
7, 1964. The
draft Party Programme was introduced by MB. He explained that
the essence of
the Party Programme consisted of the analysis of the classes
in Indian society,
the stage of the revolution, the characterisation of the Indian State
and the class alliance to be forged under the leadership of
the working class
for the people’s democratic revolution. In doing so, MB
clarified the stand on
the various issues which differed from that of the CPI. The Indian State
is an instrument of the bourgeois-landlord alliance led by the
big bourgeoisie;
the leadership of the people’s
democratic
front had to be with the working class and could not be the
joint
leadership with the national bourgeoisie; the
bourgeois-landlord State was
increasingly collaborating with foreign finance capital and so
on.
FIGHT AGAINST
LEFT SECTARIANISM
Within three years
of the formation
of the CPI(M), the Party had to confront the challenge of the
Left sectarian
trend in the form of Naxalism. The main battlefield was Andhra
Pradesh where a
large number of leaders and cadres of the Party were
influenced by the CPCs
call for armed struggle during the Cultural Revolution. MB had
to be in the
thick of the struggle against this ultra-Left deviation. The
Andhra Pradesh
state plenum held before the Burdwan Plenum on Ideological
issues in 1968 saw
MB along with P Sundarayya taking up the fight in right
earnest. MB intervened
during the discussions in the Burdwan Plenum to counter the
Left sectarian
positions presented by a section of the Andhra leaders. The
Resolution on
Ideological Issues adopted in the Burdwan Plenum provided the
bedrock for the
Party’s ideological struggle against both right revisionism
and left
sectarianism.
MB increasingly took
on the
responsibility of conducting the struggle against the
revisionist line of the
CPSU and the Left sectarian positions of the CPC. MB would use
his pen as a
scalpel to cut through the revisionist theories of the CPSU –
on the wrong
understanding of social contradictions and the illusion spread
by the concept
of a peaceful competition between capitalism and socialism and
the peaceful
transition to socialism.
MB had strongly
opposed many of the
Left sectarian positions adopted by the CPC during the period
of the Cultural
Revolution. These included the “three worlds’ theory”, the
characterisation of
the Soviet Union as “social imperialist” and the Left
adventurist call for
armed struggle around the world irrespective of the conditions
existing in
different countries.
While taking on the
wrong policies of
CPSU and the CPC, MB was categorical about not taking
anti-Soviet or anti-China
positions. He maintained that both were socialist countries,
though they suffer
from deviations from Marxist-Leninist positions and the
scientific approach to
building socialism.
MB poured scorn on
the concept of the
non-capitalist path of development advocated by the CPSU for
the newly
independent countries like India
which was adopted by the CPI too. At the same time he
trenchantly exposed the
sectarian and dogmatic understanding of the Naxalites about
the nature of
capitalist development in India.
In the “Letter to the Andhra Comrades” which was adopted by
the Polit Bureau
after the Burdwan
Plenum, MB
said:
“The fundamental
critique of the
capitalist path from the Marxist-Leninist angle is being
erroneously understood
and interpreted as though no industrial development of any
significance is
possible or has taken place, that the development of
capitalism and capitalist
relations in any degree under the capitalist path is only the
increasing
dominance of foreign monopoly capital and the strengthening
and further
consolidation of feudal and semi-feudal land relations. Thus
the strategical
despising of the capitalist path is being mechanically and
dogmatically
projected into its tactics evaluation, refusing to take into
account the
development of capitalism and capitalist relations under the
bourgeois-landlord
government.”
He also effectively
debunked the
Naxalite characterisation of the bourgeoisie in India
as a comprador one. He
defended united front tactics with other democratic parties.
He also condemned
the Left sectarian stand of opposition to participation in
parliament and the
coalition governments which were formed in Kerala and West Bengal in 1967.
After taking over as
Editor of People’s
Democracy in 1978 MB regularly wrote
on ideological questions in its columns.
AGAINST CULT
OF PERSONALITY
After the CPC made a
critical
evaluation of the Left sectarian deviation that occurred
during the Cultural
Revolution period and the promotion of the cult of personality
around Mao
Zedong, MB wrote an important article on the “Struggle against
the Cult of
Personality”. He set out the Marxist position on the cult of
the personality
and how such a distortion had developed in the case of Stalin
in Soviet Union
and Mao Zedong in China. An important point made by him was
regarding how the
cult of personality damages inner-Party democracy and
collective functioning. He
stated that:
“It should never be
forgotten that
the struggle against the cult of personality is very closely
linked with the
struggle to safeguard inner Party democracy, to ensure
collective leadership
and practice criticism and self-criticism. Good resolutions by
themselves are
not enough, they should be implemented properly without
allowing any dichotomy
to develop between words and deeds. The idea that no leader is
a “demigod” and
an “infallible Marxist-Leninist” should be propagated
constantly among the Party
ranks and the people at large. And no Communist Party should
ever resort to
punitive measures to punish differences and dissent.”
ON THE NATIONAL
QUESTION
During the
discussion and formulation
of the Party programme, it was decided that the issue of the
national question
in India
would be reserved for a later discussion. In a multinational
country like India, what is
the role of the various linguistic nationalities? Will the
right of nations to
self-determination apply in India?
The discussion and adoption of the Party’s stand on the
national question took
place in the 9th Congress of the Party held in Madurai
in 1972. The “Note on the National
Question” was discussed and adopted in the Congress. MB
introduced the document
in the Congress. It bore the stamp of his deep understanding
of the Leninist
stand on nationalities and the national question and how the
conditions in
pre-revolutionary Russia
differed from India.
While Tsarist Russia was a prison house of nationalities and
subject to
oppression by the Great White Russian nationality, India
was a multinational country
where there is no oppression by one or a group of
nationalities over the
others. Secondly, the ruling class in India,
the bourgeois-landlord
class, is a composite one drawn from various linguistic
nationalities. It is
these ruling classes which were exploiting the working classes
of all the
linguistic nationalities and subjecting them to a common class
oppression.
Therefore the call for separation or secession would weaken
the fight against
the Indian
State
and the class exploitation faced
by the working people all over the country. The task of the
working class party
was to build the unity of the working class and peasantry of
all the
nationalities to fight the common class exploitation by the
bourgeois-landlord
classes.
MB also pointed out
that during the
anti-imperialist struggle, the calls for self-determination by
any of the
nationalities against British rule was valid. But with
independence that stage
of the general struggle against imperialism was over. The
right of
self-determination should not apply any more as in the
pre-independence era.
RICH
LEGACY
MB had a polemical
style which gave
no quarter to opponents of Marxism or those who deviated from
it. At the same
time, MB was also aware that he and his colleagues could make
mistakes while expounding
on ideological issues. As he would say in his inimitable
style: “These mistakes
are made by us, not mistakes made at someone else’s bidding”.
He meant thereby
that one could learn from the mistakes one commits and rectify
them. Unlike
those who make mistakes under somebody’s influence.
The CPI(M) emerged
from a protracted
inner-Party struggle on ideological and programmatic issues.
Later it had to
stand its own ground against the wrong ideological positions
adopted by the CPC
and the CPSU. For this it had to rely on applying its own
understanding of
Marxism-Leninism to the Indian conditions. In this process, MB
was the
ideological warrior of the Party. He left his stamp on the
ideological struggle
with his deep knowledge of Marxism, his commitment to
Marxism-Leninism and his
relentless quest to apply Marxism-Leninism to fashion out the
correct approach
for the Indian revolution.
We must learn to
build on this rich
legacy left by him.
