People's Democracy

A FEW months before his demise on April 12, 1992, the late Comrade M Basavapunnaiah had prepared his detailed biodata in which he had listed all the major events of his political life spanning over approximately six decades. The note contains the events upto early October 1991. It should be added here that, after that, he was re-elected to the CPI(M) Central Committee and Polite Bureau by the Fourteenth Congress of the Party at Madras in January. The Central Committee, in its first meeting after the Congress, in March, appointed a six-member Programme Commission to update the Party Programme taking into account the development since 1964, and Comrade MB was elected Convenor of the Commission.

v    Full name: Makineni Basavapunnaiah.

v    Born on December 14, 1914.

v    Education: upto B.A

v    Date of joining the Communist Party of India: 1934-35.

v    Member, district committee, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh during the years 1936-40.

v    Elected as the district secretary, Guntur in the years 1940-43.

v    Acted as the state secretary of All India Student Federation during the years of 1937-40.

v    Elected to the CPI state committee and its secretariat from 1943 in Andhra Pradesh.

v    Elected to the CC, CPI in the year 1948, by the Second Congress.

v    Elected to the Polit Bureau of the CC, CPI in June 1950.

v    One of the four-member delegation to meet Stalin and other top leaders of the CPSU in USSR during the year 1950-51. (Other members of the delegation were C Rajeswara Rao, late Ajoy Ghosh and S A Dange. The CPSU delegation compose of Stalin, Molotov, Suslov and Malenkov.)

v    Secretariat member, Vilalandhra committee during the years of Telegana struggle from July 1946 to 1952.

v    Member of Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from April 1952 to April 1966. Underground Life: 1940-42 and 1948-52.

v    Jail life: one year in 1962-63 and one and half year during 1964-66.

v    Member of the CC, CPI during the years 1953-1958.

v    Member of the National Council of the CPI and its Secretariat from 1958 to 1962.

v    Member of the CC, CPI(M) and its Polit Bureau since 1964.

v    Editor of People’s Democracy, organ of the CC, CPI(M), during the last over 13 years.

v    Visited USSR in the year 1957 and participated in the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution as a member of the Indian delegation. Took part in the meet of the world communist parties who endorsed the Moscow declaration of 1957. Countries visited: USSR, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Yugoslavia,Czechoslovakia, GDR, Poland, Hungary, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and France.

v    I met the late Mao Ze Dong in Moscow when he was leading the Chinese delegation to the international communist meet in 1957. I, together with the late Bhupesh Gupta, requested Mao for exchange of views on the then on going debates in the world communist movement. After some preliminary discussion, Mao advised us to come China and have satisfactory discussions with the top Chinese communist leaders headed by Liu Shao Chi.

v    I was in Beijing for a fortnight and had discussions with Liu Shao Chi and some other top leaders.

v    I had the opportunity of attending the Third Romanian Party Congress in the year 1960, and availed the occasion to meet the Chinese delegation, headed by Comrade Peng Chen who was a prominent member o the Polit Bureau and Mayor of Beijing, I witness the furious attacks against the Chinese communist leadership and its political line by Khrushchev. I shared my reactions with my Indian co-delegate that the party-to-party relations between the CPSU leadership was accelerating and aggravating the divide between the two parties, thus causing irreparable damage to the unity of the world communist movement  

v    I had the good opportunity of listening to the report made by Chou En-lai and Chen-ye on the talks going on between the two government of China and India, on the border dispute. I came to the conclusion that the Indian side was too rigid and inflexible, and India-China relations were heading for a very bad time. My estimation, though sadly, proved correct and the border conflict ended in a border war in 1962, and a military confrontation has come to exist during the last thirty years – all adversely affecting the world anti-imperialist and communist movement. Khrushchev and the leadership of the CPSU initially stood for a peaceful settlement, but had gone for an all-out support to India’s stance which in turn had badly affected the Sino-Soviet relations and Sino-Indian relations.

v    I had to visit China again only in the year 1983 when our Party’s PB member, Promode Dasgupta was on his death-bed in Beijing, and had to stay there for a week. I had the good opportunity of having discussions with Comrade Qiao Shi, who is now a member of the Standing Committee and Secretariat of the CC, CPC. I could not go to China earlier than this year of 1983, due to the strained relations between the CPC and CPI(M), particularly following the full support to Naxalites against the CPI(M).

v    I had the good fortune of visiting the People’s China on a number of occasions representing the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) along with some other PB members. The latest was my visit to Beijing along with Comrades Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Jyoti Basu, E Balanandan and Sitaram Yechury, during September-October 1991, when he stayed there from September 28 upto October 3, 1991. This was intended to exchange views on world developments.

v    I and my wife were in Beijing for a month in August-September 1988 for medical check up and treatment.