People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 41
October 14, 2012
|
Vol. XXXVI
No. 41 October 14, 2012 |
Agrarian Problem, Party
Organisation and Comrade Sundarayya The 20th
Congress of the CPI(M) adopted a resolution on
the observance
of the birth
centenary of Comrade P Sundarayya. It called for a year-long observance from May
1, 2012. As a part of
this, we are reproducing the article written by late
Comrade L B Gangadhara Rao, former
Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) on Comrade P
Sundarayya. IT is
already twenty days
Comrade Sundarayya passed away; yet it is proving difficult
to live with the
fact that he will not be with us any more and amidst us.
Birth and death are
part of life and as materialists, we know it; still, it is
not easy to overcome
the grief when a great leader like Sundarayya had departed
from us. My
close relation with Comrade
Sundarayya has, over the decades of collective functioning
with him, matured
with greater intensity. More than the death of my own father
and other friends
and relatives, Comrade Sundarayya’s death has shaken me. I
was personally
present at Several
friends have
written about his qualities and personal traits; they wrote
about his
simplicity, selfless service, sacrifice, intense study,
devotion and heroism. I
propose to deal with Sundarayya’s special attention to
spheres of ideology and
organisation. Comrade
Sundarayya had
made an intense study of agriculture and its crucial role in
the Indian
communist movement. It was his deep knowledge and scientific
study of
Marxism-Leninism that prompted him to pay such special
attention to
agriculture. Our
Party programme has
made it clear that the tasks of bourgeois democratic
revolution cannot be
fulfilled in the event of capitalist class leading the
national liberation
movement. The document made it further clear that only the
leadership of
working class party and worker-peasant alliance can
contribute to successful
conclusion of the people’s democratic revolution and march
towards socialism.
These are our revolutionary experiences as well. The
Chinese Communist
Party applied this thinking in practice and achieved great
successes in their
revolution. Mao used to pay great attention to the study of
rural problems. The
Chinese revolution was successful, with the peasantry
playing the main role. Credit
goes to Comrade
Sundarayya for having undertaken such a close study of the
agrarian problem in It is
therefore not
accidental that it was Comrade Sundarayya who was the first
person to have
organised an association for agricultural labourers. He has
also played a
leading role in the formation of the all India Kisan Sabha
in 1936. Thus, on
the one hand, he had undertaken an intense study of the
agrarian problem; on
the other, he had organised the peasants and agricultural
labourers under their
banners. He himself has admitted that Lenin’s writings “to
the rural poor’
greatly influenced his thinking. Truly, he understood
Lenin’s writings on the
subject properly and contributed to a better understanding
by the Party of the
agrarian problem. The
Telangana peasants’
armed struggle is the culmination of the understanding of
agrarian problem by
Comrade Sundarayya. He undertook a deep study of the land
problem under the jagirdari
system of Nizam’s rule. He
further studied the role of relation with people in the
rural areas and organised
the people against exploitation. He was personally present
on the scene and led
that historic struggle without any compromise. He
made a significant
contribution in formulating the Party’s policy about
building a new social
system and new relations in the rural areas, besides
organising distribution of
ten lakh acres of land from which landlords and jagirdars
and deshmukhs were
thrown out during the process of the Telangana struggle. Not
only in taking forward
the Telangana struggle to new heights, but also in
organising its withdrawal
due to some historical circumstances, he proved his mettle.
He personally met
the guerilla squad leaders in the forests and discussed the
issue with them. As
secretary of the Nallamala area committee of the Party, I
know personally the
efforts put up by Comrade Sundarayya to explain to the
guerilla squad as to how
withdrawal became inevitable and under what circumstances.
He took personal
interest to assist those who were subjected to repression
and to secure legal
assistance for those implicated in cases by the government. IN HIS WRITINGS Comrade
Sundarayya made a
major contribution to the Indian revolutionary movement by
authoring a book
about Telangana peasants’ armed struggle, not only
presenting a complete and
comprehensive history but also outlining the lessons of that
struggle. If he
could write this book nearly two decades after the struggle,
it only
underscores his knowledge and grip over this historic
struggle as also on the
agrarian problem. This book was translated into Chinese and
was published in His
study of agrarian
problem did not stop with that. He secured detailed
information through
house-to-house survey of two villages of Anantavaram and
Kaza villages in There
was no agricultural
labourers’ conference at the state level which he did not
attend; he always
gave his time, energy, assistance and guidance to the
movement. He played a
valuable role in extending the base of this movement during
the past,
particularly during the last decade. During his visit to PARTY ORGANISATION He
concentrated all his
determined attention to the building up of a really
revolutionary party, even
as he fought the revisionist, opportunist and left
adventurist trends which
raised their head from time to time. During his 12-year
tenure as the general
secretary of the CPI(M), he strove to achieve it and spent
every minute of his
time in that direction. The movement in Andhra Pradesh was
in a state of boiled
milk turning cold. When he came back to Andhra from his
responsibilities at the
centre, he endeavoured to resurrect and revive the Communist
movement in the state,
widen the base, improve it organisationally and preserve the
revolutionary
standards. His
greatest attribute is
his love and affection to Party workers. He can reel out
just like that from
his memory thousands of names of Party workers in different
districts. He used
to make personal enquiries of their health, their domestic
problems and helped
them to the extent possible in case of real need. It was
this personal
attention that enthused the Party cadres. He did not give
any scope for
compromise in areas like Party organisation and observance
of revolutionary
standards. He did not spare even higher-ups in case of any
lapse; he never
tolerated indiscipline and anti-party organisational trends. I
have said earlier that
he has shaped many a Party worker and leader. But that did
not stop him from
taking action against anyone of them who broke discipline.
The action taken
against Omkar was a concrete instance. It was Sundarayya who
paid special
attention to shaping him as a seasoned Party leader and
helped him in every
respect. But once alien class tendencies developed in him
and he wanted to
build Party with the assistance of anti-social elements,
Sundarayya did not
shirk to take action against him. He used to turn livid with
anger when Party
cadres turned into such elements. During the recent years,
he concentrated his
attention to setting right the Party organisation. He worked
with the sole aim
of building a revolutionary party, which doesn’t give scope
for any alien class
tendencies. He noticed the influence of bourgeois
parliamentary tendencies on
the Party and stressed the need to keep aloof from them. As
a part and parcel
of strengthening the Party organisation, he organised
training classes for
branch secretaries. It was a new experience for the Party to
have organised
such training classes for over a thousand of them. He came
to the conclusion
that such classes should be conducted after making a
thorough study of the
organisational structure and its weaknesses. Youth
were mobilised to
shape them into revolutionary workers. Andhra Pradesh party
had a glorious past
and it was on the top of all state units of the Party at one
time and this
glory has to be restored and the Party should be able to
stand on its own legs
– this was his preoccupation during the last days of his
life. Unfortunately,
he died before achieving it. His absence will undoubtedly be
felt by the Party.
But, we have the fortune of a collective Party leadership,
which worked
alongside him. There are the high traditions which he left
behind.
Revolutionaries with long innings as well as young and fresh
Party cadres are
there. Work will go on to achieve his ideals. To build a
strong movement in Andhra
Pradesh – this is the best homage we can pay to him. He
worked for the Party
all the 24 hours; he never thought of himself; Party was
always in his
thoughts. He had amassed a wealth of experience. We pleaded
with him many times
to put down in writing all his experiences for the benefit
of posterity. Much
as he would like to do, he was always pre-occupied with
pressing work. At last,
he started on that work in the recent period. His
reminiscences were recorded up
to a point. Efforts are underway to put them in print so
that the youth will be
benefitted from his rich experiences. One
word before I
conclude. All of use are Communists. Programme and policy
are one and the same
for all of us; yet, there are bound to be some differences
in levels among the Party
workers as well as leaders. Our ideology is the same, but
everyone does not
receive the same respect and attention. Khruschev might have
taken out the body
of Stalin from the Mausoleum, but he could not erase the
thoughts about Stalin
from the minds of millions all over the world; Stalin
continues to receive the
same respect and reverence from the people. No one shed a
tear when Khruschev
died. There are some like that in our history as well. We
must accept that
Sundarayya had a special place and there are special reasons
if lakhs of people
turned up at
