But the problem in Kerala — and the challenge it poses to the central leadership — is on an entirely different scale for a number of reasons.

Supporters of both Achuthanandan and Vijayan privately concede that there is no serious ideological issue at stake in the battle even though VS might be the “hardliner” and Vijayan the “pragmatic” reformist. Unlike the intra-communist battles in 1948, 1952 or in the 1960s, the factional war in Kerala is essentially a struggle for power that has degenerated into bitter and implacable hostility between the two leaders and their diehard supporters.

While Vijayan has managed to establish complete control of the party machinery, VS has mass support that goes well beyond the CPM’s cadre base. That is why the central leadership was forced to revise its earlier decision and field VS in the assembly elections last year and make him chief minister — even though the Vijayan faction had established its supremacy in the infamous Mallapuram state conference ahead of the CPM’s 18th Congress in 2005.

If the Kerala battle cannot be compared to classic ideological wars that the communist movement has faced from time to time, neither is it at par with the periodic problems of factionalism in other state units of the CPM. The “weaker” states are far more amenable to central intervention than the strong states of Kerala and West Bengal. But while the West Bengal CPM might have trouble grappling with the fallout of the industrialization policy, the state leadership has always maintained strict organizational discipline and upheld Party norms - including public deference to the principle of democratic centralism.

... contd.