1) Introduction – why we started to look at it again

Recently, thanks to a post written by Aditya Nigam, P Sundarayya and his resignation letter resurfaced in social media. Although we differ from him regarding many of his views, we respect his opinions and read his articles seriously, as we believe him to be an important ally of the Indian communist movement. We were pleasantly surprised to know Aditya Nigam held Sundarayya's resignation letter so highly, as that is the same point of view we share.

Puchalapalli Sundarayya (PS), who was the founding General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) or CPM), resigned from all of his roles as Party General Secretary (GS) and Politburo and Central Committee Member (PBM and CCM) in 1975. In his resignation letter, he pointed out the parliamentary cretinism and opportunistic alliances the party was making, he also mentioned his disagreements with the party leadership on the topic of party building, development of communist movement, party's tasks in the Trade Unions (TU) and other mass organizations, party's attitude towards agrarian revolutionary movement and development of the secret apparatus of the party. The most important aspect of his letter, however, is the fact that he not only opposed the party's decisions, but also gave his alternatives in each of these aspects. By reading his letter, we can get an overall idea of how he envisioned the communist party to look like in India, and what he thought the major tasks of the party were. Although he asked the party to circulate his letter to the rank and file of the party, the leadership - quite expectedly - did not do so. They completely suppressed his resignation letter, and till today the party has not officially published it. We could only read this letter because Revolutionary Democracy published it (https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/resig.htm) which was widely circulated afterwards.

PS’s point of view, his approach to the revolutionary movement of India did not come abruptly. Rather, his opinions were those which followed the party’s Tactical Line, a part of which was published openly as the Statement of Policy of the unified Communist Party of India (CPI) that was published in 1951. After independence, the CPI was wrought with internal struggles, as the party leadership was clearly divided in at least three different factions, each having their own opinions about how to take the Indian revolutionary movement forward. Due to this indecision which literally paralyzed the whole party, the leadership decided to consult with CPSU and Stalin himself - in the hopes that the guidance and direction of the leading communist party of the world, who had just defeated the fascist offensive and were instrumental in increasing the influence of working class movement throughout the world, could resolve the conflicts that divided the party. The CPSU leadership spoke with the CPI leadership in 1951, and Stalin and the rest of the leadership helped in dispelling many misunderstandings and misconceptions of the CPI leadership regarding how Indian revolutionary movement was to be advanced. While some CPI leaders wanted to blindly follow the Chinese revolution, some thought a "Russia like" insurrection in the cities led by the workers would take place, and some were almost on the verge of giving up revolutionary path altogether; the CPSU clearly stated that the path of Indian revolution would be unique, and it would be a combination of workers' armed insurgency and struggle in the cities combined with partisan warfare to advance agrarian revolutionary movement in the countryside. The nature of the People's Democratic Revolution in India would be anti-feudal, anti-imperialist and anti-fascist. (The conversation of the CPSU with CPI is really a treasure trove of guidelines and advice which would enrich any communist movement in the third world, and we would be referring to it amply in the following pages. Thankfully, most of these conversations and their records are openly published in Revolutionary Democracy website, and we believe this is a must-read for any Marxist Leninist wanting to build a better future.)  The Party Program and the Tactical Line that came into effect in the following years were built in consultation with CPSU, and were the basis of PS’s criticism of the party's activities. Unfortunately, not only was the resignation letter not circulated among the members, following his resignation, the party drifted further away from the adopted Tactical Line - which it proudly flaunted as their revolutionary heritage, and criticised both the then CPI and CPI(ML) and other Communist Revolutionary groups for not understanding or following. As long as Sundarayya was alive, the party leadership did not say a word on his criticisms. However, right after his death in 1984, on the following year of 1985 M Basavapunnaiah (MB) wrote in the official party organ an article named "The Statement of Policy Reviewed" - which was an attempted reply to PS’s raised points, and the official declaration that the party was moving away from the Program and Tactical Line of 1951.

Since PS’s resignation in 1975, 50 years have passed. During this time, for a while certain communist parties like CPI and CPI(M) ran the government of three states in India, showcasing unparalleled electoral dominance for decades. During the first decade of 2000s, the CPI (Maoist) were termed the "greatest internal security threat" to the country and commanded their influence over an unprecedented amount of landmass in the heart of the country. Numerous communist parties and groups all over India have led hundreds of mass movements, at times in certain regions mastered influence over hundreds and thousands of workers, peasants, intellectuals and students. Whether it be the parliamentary communists, the maoists or the other communist revolutionaries in our country, one cannot ignore the fact that the last five decades have been characterised by immense sacrifice of millions of rank and file communist activists throughout the country. However, today we only see unbridled growth of right wing fascist hindutva movement throughout the country. We also see the communist movement getting weaker and weaker throughout the country. The fragmentation and weakening of the communist movement in our country has happened to all of its various "streams", whether it be the parliamentary ones, the guerilla warfare centric streams, and those that are in the middle. In our opinion, this is not a problem of some individuals, a few specific ideas or some wrong practices. This overall weakening of the communist movement and strengthening of the fascist movement shows us that the communist movement is suffering from some basic mistakes in their strategy and tactics. If we study PS’s letter along with the discussions between CPSU and CPI and the documents that were developed afterwards, we can see how each of the streams in Indian communist movement deviated from what the CPSU thought should have been the path of Indian revolution. Although the worsening international situation had a large role to play when it comes to the confusions that still today persist in Indian communist movement, we still think even in the present national and international situation there is a possibility of course correction, if we adapt the teachings of CPSU to the modern day realities of India and start building the communist movement afresh. To build a better future, it is always imperative to learn from the past - and that is why we think Sundarayya's letter still holds a lot of value in the present day, along with the discussions, programs and tactical line built by CPSU and CPI in 1951.

2) Why Sundarayya resigned – Aditya Nigam's point of view vs ours

Aditya Nigam's Facebook post and successive article (rightly points out two of the most important issues that Sundarayya raised in his resignation letter. One of them had to do with the role of CPI during the Jayprakash Narayan (JP) led movement in Bihar and the overall anti-Congress politics in the country at that time, and the other one dealt with the development of the party in contiguous areas instead of trying to spread out the activities countrywide in the hopes of building a nationwide presence fast. We will look at both of these issues one by one.

2.1) CPI(M) and its role during the emergency and JP movement

2.1.a) Sundarayya's view

In his resignation letter, PS writes "My resignation is due to the fact that the CC majority has decided for joint actions with pro-imperialist Jana Sangh with para-military fascist (storm-trooper like RSS) as its core in the name of fighting emergency, which I consider very harmful for our party; both among democratic masses in our country and abroad, we will be getting isolated from the anti-imperialist and socialist forces."

While explaining his point, he elaborates how on the September, 1975 resolution of the CC, the party advocated building a "united front" with all anti-congress political parties, including Jana Sangh. PS states that as the GS and PBM of the party, he had repeatedly warned the CC on not adopting such a stance, which would reduce the political task of building an anti-fascist united front to mere parliamentary opportunist opposition to Congress. In his detailed explanation in his opposition to party's stand in aligning themselves with Jana Sangh, he explains that although he was not opposed to building a people's united front against Indira Congress "from below", any kind of parliamentary committee or TU level unity with Jana Sangha or Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (both affiliates of RSS) would have paved the way into legitimising these fascist organisations in Indian society. However, not only were his opinions rejected, the party members of parliament went as far as to work completely against the resolutions of the party –

"The most glaring example is that of Com. Jyotirmoy Basu, MP whip of our Parliamentary Group. He used the position and in spite of repeated warnings, he continued his public statements and parliamentary activities in such a way as to create an impression m public that there is in effect an united opposition bloc from Jana Sangh to CPI (M) in the parliament. His latest act was his attending the meeting of the leaders of Janata Front as an "Observer" on behalf of our party, CPI (M), some time on June 16th 1975 or so. I sent him a telegram that it was against party policy and against all party decisions and asked him not to attend the meetings of leaders of Janata Front proposed to be held from the June 22nd onwards to chalk out the course of action to enforce Indira's resignation. Yet he attended June 25th meeting of these leaders."

PS vocally opposed forming any kind of Trade Union coordination committees with BMS as well, which was not what the party did. He points out in his letter how these actions are a gross oversimplification of anti-fascist tactics laid out by the Communist International, and how the party leadership tried to justify it by misrepresenting united front tactics taken by the communists in Soviet Russia and China.

2.1.b) Aditya Nigam's view

Aditya Nigam, in his article written in the Mainstream Weekly Magazine, laments that the practical paralysis that CPI(M) leadership faced during this time pushed them away from the masses, and the movement that flared up throughout the Hindi speaking belt of the country under JP's leadership. Thus, his position is somewhat different from PS in this regard. While PS resolutely opposed any kind of party level or trade union level unity with Jana Sangh and BMS, Nigam laments that during the emergency and JP movement, the virtual paralysis the party faced practically shoved them into the backseat and brought the reactionary forces and anti-congress local bourgeois parties forward. The decision of the party to create a parallel mass front to that of JP's, did not gain momentum either. Thus, Comrade Nigam laments, the party should have worked with the JP movement, demarcating their difference with them in each step, which could have given them a way to even build a foothold into the Hindi Heartland of the country, which has since been out of reach of almost all communist forces in the country, and become the breeding ground of RSS and its Hindutva ideology.

2.1.c) Our view in this matter

While being completely sympathetic to Aditya Nigam's views and opinions, we must point out how prescient PS was in his predictions regarding the threats of RSS and the rise of Hindutva fascism in India. To begin with, we must note that back then, the CPI(M) underestimated RSS and its organizations heavily. From Sundarayya's letter, we can see that the party was commenting things like –

"The Jana Sangh, however, at least, is extremely weak in the trade union field. It is a negligible quantity and the large mass of workers do not regard it as an inevitable component of working-class unity. Left to itself the Jana Sangh is no force in the trade union movement and can be safely ignored, boycotted."

This was the party's attitude towards RSS, Jana Sangh and BMS in the '70s, where now we know that by 1980 BMS was thought to be the second largest trade union in India,

and in 1989 a verification process by the Congress government led to BMS being declared the largest central trade union. By 1996 BMS was declared the largest trade union with a membership of 3,117,324; and in 2002 further verification by the Ministry of Labour solidified BMS's position as the largest, with a membership of 6,215,797.

The trend of underestimating, misunderstanding the fascist forces in India, and thus making strategic and tactical mistakes in countering it, is a phenomenon that has plagued the communist movement since its birth. However, in his letter, we can see how the CC reacted to the ban on RSS during emergency, and thus can see how they had absolutely no clear sense the threat hindu fascism posed to the country at that time.

Initially the party opposed the ban on RSS and gave statements like –

"Our party has been the most consistent fighter against RSS, Shiv Sena and such other reactionary organisations. It has always been of the opinion that such organisations should be fought politically.” – CC statement

However, later the party equated RSS with the Naxalites and supported both of their ban with the following statement –

“it has been our stand that ban on reactionary organisations like RSS or organisations like the Naxalites is correct.” PB Communique

Sundarayya correctly points out in the first instance,that banning such reactionary organisations should not be opposed like that, as this is something that should have been in the communists' demands as well. The focus should have been more on the throttling of democracy that was done by the Indira Government. Regarding the PB communique, we would just like to point out how faulty and blind the CPI(M) leadership at that point was, that they could equate some detractors of their own party (albeit with left wing deviations) with a fascist organisation like RSS in the same way!

As Aditya Nigam rightly points out, during this time the confusion regarding how to participate in JP's movement really damaged the party's possibilities in the Hindi Heartland. However, that doesn't take anything away from PS's warnings and oppositions. When we are faced with participating in a mass movement against an autocratic leader, in many cases it might happen that we have to share the movement space with reactionaries. However, it should never mean that we legitimise these reactionary forces by building formal party level or trade union level alliances with them. One of the best examples of tactics that can be adopted during these times was shown recently, in the historic farmers' movement. Although being a part of an essentially anti-BJP and anti-central government movement, the progressive forces in the farmers' movement did not let other reactionary or bourgeois forces take the leadership of the movement, did not go into any party level alliance with them, neither did they legitimise the reactionary forces that were trying to gain their relevance through this movement. This approach, where you take part in a mass movement, gain positional advantage through it, all the while keeping a distance and critiquing the reactionary forces present inside the movement, presupposes a level of tactical flexibility which the CPI(M) and the other parliamentary "official" communists never had in their history. In our opinion, without resorting to parliamentary or trade union alliances, the party could have still participated in JP's movement and rightfully critiqued JP and the other forces from within the movement. However, the tactic the party resorted to, to build short sighted alliances, and then to build parallel mass platforms - were both faulty now that we look at it. This kind of tactical inflexibility, resorting to parliamentary opportunism, not understanding the basis of mass movements and the role of communists have been things that have affected the Indian communist movement gravely, and is still hounding it even today.

2.2) The "contiguous area thesis"

As Aditya Nigam rightly points out, another big reason given by PS on his resignation letter was his complete contradictory views to the party leadership as to how the party and the communist movement as a whole in India was to be developed. While most communists in India back then (unfortunately, even today as well) dreamed of a revolution either following the Russian or the Chinese "model", the reality remains that the revolutionary movement in India will have to take a different path than either one of them. This was elaborated to the CPI leadership by Stalin himself and the CPSU leadership during their 1951 meeting, on the basis of which the Party Program and the Tactical Line was built. The CPSU leadership emphasized that the revolution in India will essentially be a combination of partisan warfare in the rural areas combined with the armed struggle of the working class in the cities, and it will essentially be a people's democratic revolution with agrarian revolution as its axis. To develop this revolution, it was needed to build strategic focus areas throughout the country, which would be used as tactical centres and would spread the movement around it. These strategic focus areas, known as contiguous areas, were supposed to be the basis of party building and communist movement in general. We will quote PS exactly from his letter, because his explanation of the idea remains relevant even today –

"In my note of July 1975, sent to CCMs, in para 16 I have said.

If our party has to function under this emergency and total (it should be corrected as "growing") illegalisation and growing terror, we cannot afford to go on postponing taking firm decisions on some basic differences.

(i) The perspective of how Indian Revolution will have to be worked for. Though our party congress and CC Resolutions again and again endorse the “Tactical Line” (the policy statement), but in practice it is being negated. The line and understanding given in the policy statement must be strictly adhered to.

"Our revolution cannot capture major industrial & administrative centres and cities, by general strike and armed insurrection of the working class and holding them, spread to the countryside and finally seal the victory.

"Firstly, because the working class is not such a dominant factor in our country (as a whole), nor a party based on Marxism-Leninism is a leading force among them in any of the key industrial strategic centres, our party or such a party does not exist now in overwhelming majority of such industrial centres (areas or regions).

"Secondly, there is no strong widespread peasant movement around these strategic industrial centres based on agricultural labourers and poor peasants. Without such peasant backing, even when the working class uprisings in certain centres capture them, they cannot hold on the fact of armed forces being brought from other centres by the ruling classes. (Even with the peasant movements their uprising is confined to two or three centres, and not countrywide or widespread in large number of such industrial and administrative centres, peasant backing can give them large enough area to deploy and continue the armed struggle for over a long period, by when the uprisings in the rest of the country can break out, while enemy can be weakened.)

"Thirdly, to expect a simultaneous all-India-wide general strike and armed insurrection of the working class backed by all-India-wide peasant armed uprising and action, or preparing (or hoping) for such an eventuality is to forget today's Indian reality, the tremendous uneven development of the democratic and revolutionary movement (as well as vast difference in industrial and agrarian development in various regions or states in India).

“The extraordinary special conditions of the Russian Revolution have not been repeated in any other country during the last 60 years.

"So, the path of Indian Revolution will have to be to concentrate on regions and areas with industrial working-class centres and around them in vast contiguous areas, the peasant movements have to be developed in depth, first as political base areas, then guerrilla areas which may develop into liberation areas; the working class in these centres should take the leading role in developing such areas. It should not fritter away its forces on adventuristic ventures or in engaging the ruling classes in premature and unequal confrontations (in cities alone).

“The working class must not confine itself to fighting for its own immediate economic demands, but at the same time, formulate its demands along with the demands of other sections of toiling masses, especially, the toiling peasants and secondly of middle classes. It must also draw in the backward, unorganised sections of the working class and the unemployed. It must actively and directly devote its energies and cadres to develop the peasant movement, students and other auxiliary movements (youth, women etc.) as well as develop the democratic movement bringing in the middle classes and non-big bourgeois sections as well.

"In other areas where the democratic movement and our party is negligible (correct it as "a small") force, whatever contacts, members, and movement we may have, should be developed into small pockets, on similar lines so that when big struggles are fought in the priority areas, these can also act disrupting or diverting the enemy concentration on the main areas. They are to be spread all over the country, as leopard spots."

It is this perspective that should guide our plan of work and day to day work on different mass fronts, especially in trade union and Kisan fronts."

This precise and lucid explanation of how Indian communist movement should be built unfortunately fell to deaf ears when it came to the leadership of CPI(M). Some of them, like BT Randive (BTR), still believed in a Russian Revolution style insurrection in India, while the others - we can assume by looking at their actions after PS's resignation - never took the issue of developing the revolutionary movement in India seriously, and were entrenched in parliamentary cretinism.

The task of developing contiguous areas, to deploy capable cadres in strategic working class areas and to develop the consciousness of the workers to the level that they unite with the peasantry who live in the rural areas around the working class centres, remains a task that was never perfectly practised almost anywhere in India. In whatever small manner it has been practised, we have seen how strong the worker-peasant alliance and a true united front of workers, peasantry, urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, students and youth can be. Throughout his resignation letter, PS pointed out how the party leadership, especially in TU movement were running after a dream of building all India trade unions, and were leaving the task of integrating the workers with the peasantry and developing their class consciousness behind. Expectedly, there was a virtual 'radio silence' from the party leadership on this and other matters raised by PS in his letter. Only after his death, MB wrote an article named "Statement of Policy Reviewed", where he attempted to "answer" (PS's letter has never been made public by the party, so it was impossible for members to know that this article was in fact a reply to his letter) the points raised by PS. This "review", when one reads it, can be understood as a very poorly written attempt by the party leadership to "revise" the tactical line document. He attempted to resolve the debate between PS's opinion regarding developing contiguous areas and BTR's opinion, which was to focus on developing country wide TU movement, by saying both can be done simultaneously, which is untenable and absurd, and did not resolve the question at all (Unfortunately, by the time this article was published, i.e 1986 after Sundarayya's death, the party was already so deep in parliamentary cretinism and reformism in general, that probably no member raised a serious issue about these topics). The Muzaffarpur resolution of the CC in 1973, where the decision to develop the party based on the Tactical Line was taken, was basically disregarded by MB through this article.

The question of developing party work based on strategically focused areas presupposes the fact that there will be large regions in the country where the party will have weaker presence. While focusing the resources on the contiguous areas to develop all front work, mainly through workers, students, peasants and agricultural labourers; the question remains, what will be the task of the party in the relatively weaker areas? Aditya Nigam in his article says that there is a "silence" in PS's discourse regarding the work that has to be done in the non-priority areas. However, when we look at PS's letter and the Muzaffarpur CC resolution, we can see that was not the case. Here we would also like to present what the party's and PS's opinion were regarding work in the weaker areas.

In the 1973 Muzaffarpur CC resolution, it is said that,

"Our tactics in the face of the uneven development of the movement must be to consolidate and extend to contiguous areas from the existing states, and develop these as wider and wider mass bases, while in the weaker states or areas, select the key centres or fronts to begin with, and link up with the, majority strong centre till we have a wider area where we can really function as a powerful mass and political force." (Emphasis added by us)

In his letter, PS says

"In other areas where the democratic movement and our party is negligible (correct it as "a small") force, whatever contacts, members, and movement we may have, should be developed into small pockets, on similar lines so that when big struggles are fought in the priority areas, these can also act disrupting or diverting the enemy concentration on the main areas. They are to be spread all over the country, as leopard spots."

He also states that

"The present-day conception of imitating the pattern of work of the strong areas, in all our weaker and weakest areas should be abandoned. There the necessity of working with other democratic forces or even mass organisations led by reactionary forces (in all mass organisations or even in other political parties – P.S. 1975) is to be emphasised."

And again,

"Unless in all states, we make special effort, on student centres starting in colleges and develop first politically conscious cadres for our party and enthuse them to take up work among the working class and the peasantry, our future would be dark, especially in weaker states, the first priority, attention and concentration must be on the work among students. There should be no open student organisation separately under our wing. There in the existing college unions or their student associations under different political groupings, we must patiently build secret student groups of our own. Only when we have sufficient mass democratic support, then only we may be permitted to function organisations under our banner. Even in such places, as well as in strong States with developed student movement, large number of them join the Govt. apparatus and industrial establishments as future cadre of our party and as standby cadre.”

"Now coming to the remaining main criticism of BTR about student organisation and their role (No. 4 as listed) "I never had any hope that student organisation can be developed, with the party weak or absent in the basic masses" in a big way. But I do think that we should seriously make a beginning of building student groups, especially where our party is weak or absent. These student members and militants are to be drawn into activity among the basic classes."

All of this give us a clear idea of how the party and PS perceived the tasks in the non-priority areas should have been carried out. These guidelines and suggestions were, quite obviously not followed by the party, and instead of developing their work in an organised manner, even today CPI(M) and the other communists daydream about having an all India presence "one day".

Aditya Nigam gives his own opinion regarding the work a party has to do in non-priority areas, invoking Gramscian concepts of "war of position" and "war of manoeuvre" in his discussion. We cannot say we agree with what he says completely, however the application of Gramscian concepts in Indian proletarian movement is such an important and complex issue that it has to be dealt separately, which we will do in the subsequent parts that will follow this article.

To end this part, we must state that the debate between developing contiguous areas and focusing on developing an all-India presence should have been fixed long ago. Without targeting focus areas, without developing working class presence in the strategically important sectors in these priority areas, no communist party can be developed in a country, especially in a country as diverse and uneven as ours. However, if there is a countrywide or weaker area specific flare up of mass movement, the party must make astute decisions, and involve some of its forces to join this movement and develop influence among the masses. If opportunity arises, the party can also expand its TU work in non-priority areas (given that there is at least some local presence of the party in that area). However, all these tasks must be subsidiary to the work the party must carry out in contiguous areas. Without developing all front work in the priority areas, and expanding and joining them with the weaker areas, there is no possibility of building a revolutionary communist movement in our country even today.

3) The other reasons why Sundarayya Resigned

Except for the reasons stated above, PS also stated other points of conflict he had with the Politburo of CPI(M) which led to his resignation. These were -

3.1) Partisan struggle and agrarian revolutionary task

As we all know by now, the CPI(M), in paper, accepted that the Indian Revolution would primarily be an agrarian revolution in nature, which would combine partisan warfare with armed struggle in the cities. PS writes in his resignation letter that although he agreed with the CC decisions regarding the tasks that had to be taken to build the agrarian revolutionary movement, many of the party units and cadres were not taking these tasks seriously, and overall the party had no intention to focus their efforts on developing partisan struggle for partial demands, building small peasant - agricultural labourer unity and building agrarian revolutionary movement in the stronger regions.

However, this is a point where we think the ship had sailed for the party long ago. As we all know, the Telengana Struggle was the most significant partisan struggle of peasants in India during that time. In 1951, CPI withdrew the armed struggle in Telengana. This withdrawal of struggle even today divides the communist movement in India in two different camps, one who support the withdrawal and another which opposes it. According to PS in his “Telangana People’s Struggle and Its Lessons”, this was a unanimous decision made by the Andhra Committee of the Party. However, DV Rao, another communist leader who was a part of the struggle, later claimed that this was not a unanimous decision as he and others were kept out of the loop while the decision was being taken. DV Rao later wrote his own book “Telangana Armed Struggle and The Path of Indian Revolution” where he doubled down on his previous position that withdrawal of armed struggle in Telengana was a mistake. We must also note here that DV Rao defended the “Andhra Thesis” of the party and supported a “People’s War according to Mao Thought” in India (however, these questions must be dealt with separately).

Many communists, especially those who opposed CPI(M) later during Naxalbari uprising alleged that at that time, the party leadership had conjectured that they took this decision under the direction of Stalin and CPSU leadership. Now, with the help of articles released by Revolutionary Democracy (https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv26n1/StalinDisc.htm, https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv12n2/cpi2.htm and https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv26n1/StalinDisc.htm) we can see what was Stalin’s real opinion regarding Telengana struggle. We will quote the sections as it is below –

“...It is also untrue to assert that civil war in the country is in full swing. In Telangana land was seized but it proves little. This is still the beginning of the opening of the struggle but it is not the main form of the struggle from which India is still distant. The peasant needs to learn to struggle on the small questions – lowering lease rents, lowering the share of the harvest which is paid to the landlord etc. It is necessary to train the cadres on such small questions and not speak at once of armed struggle. If you begin a broad armed struggle, then serious difficulties will arise at your end as your party is weak.

It is necessary that the party becomes strong and orientate the mass struggle in the needed direction and sometimes even restrain the masses. ...” (Emphasis ours)

“You also ask me – under which conditions might one undertake partisan war. In the advanced capitalist countries partisan war may not have great significance, here the partisans are quickly seized. An especially great significance attaches to partisan war in medium-developed and backward countries. For example, it is very difficult to initiate partisan war in the United States of America or in Germany. Here essentially there are many large towns, a developed railway network, industrial regions, and the partisans in these conditions are at once caught. It is necessary, in order that the mass of the people themselves consider that they are heroes, and the heroes consider themselves as the executors of their own will, that separate acts, directed against the enemy, leads to passivity of the mass but to heightened activity. In every way it is necessary to support what has originated in Telengana. It is the first sprouts of civil war. But one does not need to rely on partisan war alone. It, of course, renders assistance but itself it is in need of help.

It is necessary to have bigger work amongst the people, amongst the workers, in the army, amongst the intelligentsia, the peasantry.” (Emphasis ours)

Later, when C. Rajeshwara Rao explicitly asked: “Should we stop the partisan struggle that is going on in Telangana and in Tripura?” Stalin’s handwritten marginal answer on the document was: “No, if the people want to continue [the partisan struggle].” (https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n1/india.htm)

From this, we can see that firstly, Stalin or the CPSU leadership never explicitly suggested withdrawal of Telengana struggle, but was rather optimistic about the struggle and wanted the party to support it, and advised to continue the partisan struggle if the people wanted to continue it. However, they also did not think that this would lead to a civil war in India, and they focused more on the development of the party among the masses to make the party stronger. Till this day, the withdrawal of armed struggle in Telengana remains a contested question, whether it really was a partisan struggle for partial demands as PS suggested, or whether it created liberated areas with people’s organs of power as DV Rao suggested should be resolved in the future by reviewing appropriate objective and impartial documents. However, one thing is for sure, after the withdrawal of armed struggle in Telengana, the then united CPI did not focus on developing partisan struggles in any part of the country, and following the next general election and then Stalin’s death, the party immersed itself completely into parliamentary cretinism and “peaceful transition towards socialism” as formulated by Khrushchev.

PS became the General Secretary of CPI(M) when it broke away from CPI. Although at that time the CPI(M) leadership claimed that the Great Debate, the role of CPI leadership in supporting CPSU's "peaceful development" path and supporting Indian National Congress were the reason, many at that time and later claimed that this break was a mere power struggle. However, during this break, almost all the party members who still believed and wanted to fight for agrarian revolutionary movement, came into CPI(M). The events at Naxalbari and Srikakulam took place due to tireless decade-long work of these party members, work which were ongoing well before the CPI-CPI(M) split took place. Instead of supporting these movements and pointing out the left deviationist tendencies, the party and PS himself decided to brand the whole movements as left-wing adventurism, thus alienating large chunk of the party in various regions (Especially in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab along with other states), who then broke away from the CPI(M) to build the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR). In his own state Andhra Pradesh, a large majority of the party broke away and formed Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (APCCR), which later joined AICCCR. Looking back, it is true that many of the slogans, tactics and ideas floated by the activists of these movements were infantile in nature, and reeked of petty bourgeois adventurism - exemplified by the actions of Charu Majumder, Saroj Dutta and the likes. However, among the people who supported and took part in these movements, were also committed life-long revolutionaries like T Nagi Reddy, DV Rao, Parimal Dasgupta, Asit Sen, Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Sushital Roy Chowdhury and others (among them special mention must be made of Parimal Dasgupta, who was a veteran trade union leader and supported the 1951 program and tactical line completely. His critique of the CPI(M) party program, and also his critique of the left deviationist tendencies of Naxalbari movement remains relevant even today). By denouncing the whole movement and treating all the dedicated communists who fought for these movements as deviants, we believe the CPI(M) once and for all moved away from the path of partisan struggle and agrarian revolution (Even after taking into account all the shortcomings of Naxalbari movement and its leaders, it is still the only spectre that haunts the Indian ruling classes today, while CPI(M) has been reduced to one of its trusted puppet oppositions whose MP accompanies the right wing government on visits abroad to support the "Operation Sindoor" and the warmongers). There were many ways a party leadership could have approached these movements, the major way should have been to hold high the banner of partisan struggle while educating the party cadres on the Tactical Line and how this can be used to develop the revolutionary movement, at the same time isolating and exposing the left-wing infantiles. Instead of doing this, PS supported those people in the CPI(M), who since the '60s, stopped focusing on developing any kind of agrarian revolutionary movement at all.

One can imagine that later PS realised that the party had no intention of developing partisan struggle and agrarian revolutionary movement, nor follow the revolutionary line prescribed in the Statement of Policy. However, it indeed was too late, and by the time he realised it, the activists who were serious in developing the agrarian revolutionary movement were outside of the party, in their own groupings each following their own version of "Mao Tse Tung Thought".

3.2) Work on the Trade Union Front

We have already mentioned in detail how and why PS opposed the decision of BTR and the TU leadership of joining RSS-BMS in a joint united front against the Congress government. PS also had other serious reservations against TU work that was being conducted by BTR and others in the party. He complained that the TU work was done almost independently, by disregarding the Party PB's opinion on various things. PS believed the party should follow the Tactical Line, and focus on developing political consciousness in their TU member workers, so that they can connect to the rural peasantry that is present in and around the industrial areas, so that contiguous areas can be developed. This needed very focused painstaking work, and demanded the party to allocate its resources to limited and focused areas of strategic importance. However, BTR and other party leadership used the TU front to develop all India level platforms, and were dispersing party members in various different areas in the hope of developing all India organisations. PS was clearly against this line of work, but his opposition was up to no avail. He also mentions in his letter that while reporting on TU activity, BTR refrained from mentioning the exact number of activists in each area and industry, which created confusion and lack of understanding among the other members regarding the work that was actually successfully being done on this front.

We have to remember that at the time the letter was being written, Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) had already been established by the CPI(M) as a centre to unite struggling workers. However, we can see in the letter that substantial differences persisted between PS and others regarding how CITU should have been used by the party. While BTR and the others wanted to give an "all India" presence to CITU as soon as possible, and were focused on opening CITU affiliated unions even in places where there were only a few workers under the party's influence, Sundarayya's approach was different. He wanted the party influenced workers in weaker areas to work in the unions present there previously (the correct Leninist view) and activate CITU only in the places where they had substantial influence.

From PS's opinions regarding TU activity, we see the visions of a leader who was wary of economism, wanted to focus on developing the political consciousness of the workers, and was truly dedicated to building worker-peasant unity in the country. He is also one of the only Marxists that we have come across who not only acknowledged the uneven development of the country, but also acknowledged the multi-lingual and multi-national character of our country, and how that can shape the mass organisations. The following excerpt remains one of the most unique parts of the letter, and even today, very few Marxists have such perspective regarding working class movement and mass organisations in India –

"I do hold if we do not develop the peasant and democratic movement in contiguous areas on a priority basis but go after developing of state-wide and all-India-wide TUs and that too directly under the CITU, we will not be able to politicalise the working class nor forge workers' and peasants' alliance nor develop even in any stronghold. Com. BTR's idea of establishing proletarian hegemony on the basis of state-wide and all-India wide organisations comes from his whole understanding that it is the all-India-wide general strike and insurrection of the working class that will spark off the armed actions of the peasant masses. In fact, this advocacy is nearer to his own tactical line of 1949. He does not understand the importance of the work among the peasantry and the way to force workers peasants alliance and how the working class has to act in forging it.  Finally one important difference that exists between our country and other industrially developed states is that ours is a multi-lingual and multi-national state. As such our mass organisations if they have to be developed and be effective, can be only of state-wide character. All India centres will be only coordinating centres; laying centralised line. If we forget this linguistic and multi-national character and only try to form TU organisations on all-India level, as if it is unilingual and one nation state, we would be depriving the initiative and effectiveness of TU organisations even at the state level. This again raises the question of understanding of our party programme, question of nationalities, linguistic states which Com. BTR formally accepts but does not give due importance in day-to-day functioning, which I will deal later after dealing with TU differences.”

3.3) Developing the secret part of the party

As a party working for revolution, communist parties must always be prepared to face the harshest state terror on them, and prepare themselves in a way so that the whole party apparatus is not destroyed by the first blow of the state. Thus, even a legal communist party must have its own secret and unexposed part, with members working in a clandestine manner so that they cannot be easily identified with the party. In his letter, PS says that the whole party from its beginning has neglected building any kind of secret work. He quotes the note he as GS sent to the CC in 1970, where he explained n detail how the party should have a secret section even in its strong areas, and how members must work secretly, in other mass organisations and parties, in areas where the party's influence is weak or non-existent. Unfortunately, his plea fell to deaf ears, as both BTR and MB could not even understand the complexity and urgency of the matter, and even during emergency, practically the whole party leadership and all apparatus remained completely exposed.

5 decades after, we can understand very clearly that except for PS, the leadership of CPI(M) that remained after the 1967 break, had no intention of carrying out the tasks needed for Indian revolution. They would hold the Tactical Line and the revolutionary heritage of Indian communist movement as a facade, while dedicating themselves fully to legalism and parliamentary cretinism. From his letter, we can also see that the politburo practically seized to exist as a single functioning unit, and instead the PBMs were working in their respective states.

4) What we can learn from the Sundarayya letter

The letter written by PS is so vast, touches upon so many concepts and issues, and raises so many questions that it must be read again and again to get a complete grasp of the matter. We can see that even after all his shortcomings (One of which is also the fact that PS supported the “revision” of 1951 Program document which was made by CPI(M) during its foundation. Interesting to note is that Parimal Dasgupta wrote a critique of CPI(M)’s program, which can be found in the Parimal Dasgupta archive of RD), PS was still a dedicated revolutionary, and only when he saw it was practically impossible to lead the party to the revolutionary path, did he decide to resign. Even then, most of his recommendations and perspectives are invaluable in today's scenario as well, if one wants to develop a communist movement throughout the country.

However, it is indeed true that in the last 5 decades many things both in the national and international front have changed substantially. The RSS-BJP-BMS combine, which the communists underestimated back in the day, has invaded all parts of the society today. The overall fall of international communist movement has had a tremendous impact in pushing people away from marxist ideology in general. In India, the communist parties and groups have changed their character, merged and split, and have had significant achievements and failures in this time.

To understand the present day communist movement properly, one must look into the state of the "official" communist parties (like CPI, CPI(M), CPI (ML) Liberation), the banned CPI(Maoist), and the various communist revolutionary groups and organisations working all across the country. In the next issue of this journal, we will try to assess their work based on the discussions and recommendations that Indian communists got from CPSU and CPC in two different decades. Incidentally, next year would also be the 75th anniversary of the Program and Tactical Line document formulation of the undivided CPI, and we think it would be a wonderful opportunity for all of us to look at those documents again, and to see how they can be implemented in today's day and age.

Of course, had com. Nigam not reminded us about the fact that this was the 50th year of PS's resignation, we would not have had this idea of reviewing the letter deeply again, and we thank him wholeheartedly for that. We would also like to point out that his opinion regarding the Gramscian aspects of developing working class hegemony is extremely important, and the issue must be grasped and dealt with in a proper manner. We hope to do it in the next issue as well, as a continuation of this article.

With revolutionary greetings,
Comrades of Bengal

(Comrades of Bengal is a group of young Bengali communists who want to contribute in developing the theory and practice of people’s democratic revolutionary movement in India)

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