Role In Educating Party Members

 M Basavapunnaiah

Excerpts from an article “PD is 20 years old” by Comrade M Basavapunnaiah published in People’s Democracy, June 23, 1985.

HOWEVER, the CC and PB of the CPI(M) took up this struggle against the Left-adventurist trend in August 1967, and trounced this Left sectarian wing at the Party Plenum in Burdwan in the month of April 1968.

In this whole struggle People’s Democracy played a prominent role with its sustained struggle against the Left-adventurist assault on the Party. But for this sustained campaign of People’s Democracy our Party’s political-ideological line could not have been carried to every nook and corner of the country wherever our Party had come to exist. Scores of articles and resolutions carried in People’s Democracy against this sectarian menace remain as standing evidence of the crucial role played by People’s Democracy.

DEFENDING STATE GOVT

This was not all. During the same period of 1967-70, the CPI(M) had to participate and lead the two non-Congress state governments in West Bengal and Kerala. People’s Democracy played its proud role defending these two state governments and also several other non-Congress state governments that came into existence in that period, against all attacks of the rulling Congress, and warding off all slanderous attacks on them by the big bourgeois press in the country. In fact People’s Democracy was feeding the whole language press of our Party in this campaign against the enemies of our Party.

Again when the CPI deserted the non-Congress United Front government in Kerala during October 1969 and an anti-CPI(M) coalition government was installed there, People’s Democracy had to carry out its bitter struggle of exposure of this treachery of the CPI for full ten years from 1970 to 1980. In this period as many as 300 and more of the cadres and militants of the CPI(M) in Kerala had to lay down their lives in defence of the Party and its political ideological line.

FIGHTING SEMI- FASCIST TERROR

One of the most important and proud tasks that was carried out with remarkable success by People’s Democracy was the sustained struggle against the semi-fascist terror rule in West Bengal imposed on the CPI(M) by the Congress, in alliance with the CPI and some other Left groups. This semi-fascist terror rule lasted for six years between 1971 and 1977. Under this Congress terror rule, the CPI(M) had to sustain the loss of more that 12,000 brave comrades, see some 20 thousand Party members and their families driven away from their hearths and homes, most of the offices of our Party and mass front organisations occupied by Congress hoodlums, with the state unit of the CPI(M) bearing the brunt of this brutal offensive. Here again it was People’s Democracy that served as the effective vehicle to expose the Congress crimes throughout the country, with the active help and cooperation of all our Party Press in the different states.

THE EMERGENCY AND AFTERWARDS

Then came the imposition of the hated Emergency rule in June 1975. Once again it was People’s Democracy that acted as the central vehicle to expose the Emergency regime and atrocities committed under this regime. People’s Democracy  played its vanguard part in fighting against the Emergency regime and exposing the false plea of the CPI that the Emergency regime was to combat the rising threat of fascist forces in the country. People’s Democracy rallied the entire Party and its class and mass base behind the then on-going struggle under the leadership of the late Sri Jaya Prakash Narayan, and in inflicting a crushing defeat on the then ruling Congress and its hangers on in the general elections in
March 1977.

The ruling Congress was trounced in the Lok Sabha elections. Then followed the Assembly elections in several states where also the Congress was roundly defeated. The outstanding victories won in West Bengal and Tripura in 1977-78, have been able to sustain the Left Front’s rule for the last eight years in the two states.

Here again People’s Democracy, and its associated central Party organs, have been acting as the chief instruments to propagate the achievements of these two governments exposing every lying propaganda against them. It was through People’s Democracy that the victories and problems of the two Left Front governments could be broadcast not only inside the country but to several countries and quarters outside the country. If some communist and other progressive-minded people abroad came to know something about the problems, achievements and activities of the two Left Front governments of West Bengal and Tripura, the major credit must go to People’s Democracy and the staff working in it.

DEFENDER OF UNITY

People’s Democracy is playing the role of a zealous defender of national unity and integration, standing firmly against every separatist and secessionist movement and organisation. Not merely that. It is People’s Democracy that is consistently exposing the imperialist designs for balkanising and dismembering the large and populous Indian Union. It is true that People’s Democracy is the staunch advocate of states’ autonomy and a genuine federal structure of the Indian Union. It is of the firm conviction that a strong and united Indian Union can become a reality when the states are granted real autonomy which they are denied under the present Indian Constitution today.

The CPI(M), after deep and long discussion, had boldly decided to drop the clause of “right of secession,” a clause that was there in the earlier political documents including the Party Programme of the year 1951. Our Ninth Congress at Madhurai had rewritten the entire chapter on Centre-State relations, fully avoiding any concession to the secessionist concept of the right of nations to self-determination. Since then People’s Democracy has been upholding Indian unity, denouncing all kinds of national chauvinism and separatism, along with communal and casteist disruption of national unity and integrity.