Though the CPI has initiated moves for the merger of the two parties, the CPM is of the view that both cannot close ranks unless the fundamental issues are resolved
Thiruvananthapuram : The decision of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to celebrate its 50th anniversary next month has fuelled a fresh debate in the southern Indian state of Kerala over the split in the communist movement.
Pannian Ravindran, state secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), raked up the debate by terming the split in 1964 a ‘tragedy’ in an open letter to his party members published in the party organ ‘Navayugam’.
Viewing the letter as a veiled attempt to bring the much-debated merger between the two communist parties to the agenda in the run up to the parties’ congresses to be held early next year, the CPM has out rightly rejected the CPI’s arguments.
Tracing the developments leading to the split, CPM state secretariat member and chief editor of party mouthpiece Deshabhimani V Dakshinamoorthy said there would not have been any revolutionary party in India if the split had not occurred.
In an article in Deshabhimani, Dakshinamoothy said that the CPM had emerged as the major communist force as it had dissociated from the wrong line and authoritarian approach of the then undivided party chief S Dange.
Ravindran termed this as a wrong reading by the CPM. He said that the communist party would have grown into a massive force in the country if the party remained undivided. He cited the votes secured by the parties before and after the split to buttress his argument.
He said that the party had garnered 35 percent votes when it fought the election as an undivided party. The votes of the two parties after the split came down to 27 per cent. Ravindran viewed this as a proof that the people had distanced from the communist movement after the split and said this was not something worth a celebration.
CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and politburo members S Ramachandran Pillai and Sitaram Yechury have rejected the CPI arguments saying that the people would have dumped it if they had followed Dange’s line of compromising with class forces.
Pillai said the split was not an overnight development but the result of long debates within the party over ideological, organisational and political issues. Yechury termed the split as a rational development.
In an article in the Deshabhimani, he said that the reluctance by certain sections of the undivided party to correct the mistakes had led to the split. He said that the CPM would continue to fight both left and right deviations. The debate has once again put the moves for the merger, initiated mainly by the CPI to the backburner. The CPM is of the view that the two parties could not close ranks unless the fundamental issues that led to the result are resolved.
The party says the need hour is to strengthen the Left unity rather than re-unification or merger. Party politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that the CPM was aiming at the unity of all left forces in the country.
The CPM and CPI are working unitedly in Kerala. The CPM would take the initiative to ensure such unity in other states, he added.
