IN MEMORY OF
VETERAN COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS.
1.
Remembering
Comrade Promode Sen Gupta:
On November 18, the comrade breathed his last while working on
manuscript he was preparing for the press.
Beginning
from
his student days he was active in politics, both as writer and
organizer. In 1926 he was entered in a village and then deported. He
had
since then a colorful life , joining the Spanish civil war, and
then fighting in the anti fascist guerrilla war in France under the
French Communist party, and then living as a detenue in the Fascist concentration camp at Tulu. He then joined Subash Bose's INA as
minister of propaganda. And after the fall of Berlin, he was first
not arrested by the Red Army, but later was captured by the British
Army, and placed for severe interrogation by the Indian Army officer
Cariappa (who later became the Indian Army Chief). While he was in
the Cariappa concentration camp, there was huge post war pro INA mass
upsurge in India, and Sen Gupta was released along with others. On
coming back home, he joined the Communist Party of India and subsequently the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and organised the
Naxalbary Krishak Sahayak Samiti as president, but in the end of 1968
he differed with Charu Mazumdar and left the association on the issue
of individual annihilation in the name of guerrilla war terming it as
anti Marxist.
However,
he maintained connections
with the Marxist-Leninist s worked hard to bring to notice of the
international working class and honest intellectuals the plight of
the political prisoners
in the Indian Jails
through the 'Association for Protection of democratic Rights' (APDR);
which was fought for release of communist Revolutionaries and
democratic rights of suppressed people of India. And a fighter for
Indian democratic and civil rights, Comrade Sen Gupta will ever be
remembered.
2.Remembering
Comrade Chandra Pulla Reddy and Comrade Satyanarayan Sing:
Comrade
Chandra Pulla Reddy, General Secretary of one of the CPI(ML) groups,
died of a massive heart attack at Calcutta on 9th
November, 1984, at the age of 66 years. Comrade Chandra Pulla Reddy
has been in underground since 1968, in face of fierce state repression threatening his life. It is learn that he was seriously ill since over
a month before his death. Yet even against medical advice, he traveled to Calcutta on party work; thus risking his life for the
cause he took upon since his student days. Comrade CP is known for
his hard work and determination in carrying out what ever he took
upon. We pay homage to the departed leader.
Comrade
CP was born in a middle peasant family on 1st
September 1918, in velugodu, a village in Kurnool district of
Andhra Pradesh. After completing his school in Kurnool, he went to
Madras Loyola College where he completed intermediate course. Later
he joined the Gindy Engineering College, Madras, where he came under
the influence of the National movement against the British rule.
Comrade
CP came to the forefront as one of the student leaders who organised
a students strike, protesting against the arrest of Nehru in 1940,
and also the protest movement against the imperialist war in those
days. Around the same time he came under the influence of Marxism –
Leninism through Mohan Kumara Mangalam who was a Communist leader in
those days. Thus he become a communist.
In 1940
itself, when he was in the second year course of the Engineering
College, CP was expelled from the college for his nationalist and
anti-war activities. He was issued a suomoto order ( that he shall
not be admitted any college, any where) when he contemptuously
refused to give an apology to the college authorities.
After he
was refused admission into a degree college at Madanapalle (Andhra
Predesh) where he planned to work as a student organizer, CP fully devoted himself to the Communist movement in India. He became a party organizer in Kurnool district committee and a member of the State Committee of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1966.
During
the period of Telangana armed struggle, he went to underground and
worked to build the communist revolutionary movement in Rayalaseema
region, then under Madras Province. In 1952 he was elected to the
Madras assembly as communist party candidate. Beginning from from the quit India movement in 1942 he was arrested and put in prison a number
of times – in 1942, 1950, 1952 and 1964-66. But neither any
hardship nor the repeated imprisonment could defeat his courage and
conviction.
Along
with comrades Tarimela Nagi Reddy and Devulapali Venkateswara Rao, he
was in the forefront of the revolutionary wing of the communist party
during the decade of great debate from 1957 to 1967. With the first
split in the CPI he joined the CPI(M) and was a Secretariat member of
its Andhra Pradesh State Committee, during 1966 – 1968. During this
period when the CPI(M) leadership exposed its neo-revisionist face,
Comrade CP waged a determined struggle along with Comrades TN and DV
to expose and isolate the Neo-revisionist leadership in Andhra. He
effectively presented alternative draft of Andhra Communist
Revolutionaries at CPI(M)'s Burdwan plenum. Subsequently along with
other he was in the forefront in organizing the Communist
Revolutionary ranks, and in the struggle against neo-revisionism and
also Charu Mazumdar's left adventurist policies during 1968-69.
however,
soon he parted company with Comrades Tarimela Nagi Reddy and
Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao and organized another group; then the
CPI(ML), in association with SNS in 1974. After a long pass of the
time, the then UCCRI(ML) and CPI(ML)CP Reddy wing – two
organisations established contact and embark on constructive relations, since 1982. Not withstanding some differences on certain
important questions they have been striving to develop a common
understanding through discussions and joint activities on the issues
agreed upon by respective mass organisations. During these
discussions Comrade CP expressed deep concern for unity.
COMRADE
SATYANARAYAN SING, General Secretary of one of the CPI(ML) group,
died on 21.10.84 at the age of 62 years. He died of a massive heart
attack, in King George Hospital at Visakhapatanam (Andhra Pradesh).
Comrade SNS has been one of the prominent leaders of the CPI(ML)
groups which have been struggling to arrive at a correct
understanding and practice of Indian Revolution.
Comrade
SNS was in Secretariat of CPI(M)'s Bihar State committee in mid
sixties. In late sixties he broke off from neo-revisionists and
joined the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist
Revolutionaries. When the CPI(ML) was formed under the leadership of
Charu Mazumdar, Com. SNS became of its Central Committee.
Subsequently,
opposing some aspects of Charu Mazumdar's left adventurism, he broke
off from the CPI(ML) and organized another under the same name in
1972. Com. SNS had been the General Secretary of the then CPI(ML)
which passed through various developments under his leadership.
His
sudden death was a great disappointment. Not withstanding his
mistakes, Comrade SNS has been hard working and energetic comrade who
sacrificed his life in the Communist Revolutionary Movement.
We pay
our homage to the veteran Communist leaders Comrade Promode Sen
Gupta, Comrade CP Reddy and Comrade SNS. We pledge to learn from
these leaders positive and negative experiences of their role in the
Indian Communist movement and carry forward our struggle for a
principled unity and for the cause of India Revolution.
[ This
article is from 'CLASSSTRUGGLE' –
Organ of the Central Committee of CPI (ML).
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