CPI (United)

The Communist Party of India (CPI),India’s original communist party,never retained more than a toehold in West Bengal after it split in 1964. Now,in 2011,it has more legislators even in Tamil Nadu than it does in Bengal. Bengal,having provided the Left’s political clout and financial resources till the other day,the CPI’s near non-existence there told the story of its redundancy,even though it reminded one its presence in pockets across the country. So the party had often proposed a merger with the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). The CPM largely ignored the CPI’s questioning of the need for two communist parties. It has changed tone now,at its weakest in three-plus decades,and reduced to just one state government — Tripura.

So,CPM leader Sitaram Yechury has acknowledged the call from the Left’s “well-wishers” for merging the two parties “as soon as possible”. He went on to say that,while desirable,the merger has to undergo due process,such as the “unification of various mass organisations and joint activities at the lower level”. But the CPI’s D. Raja believes the union has to happen at the top first,because the bottom-upwards process has already “failed”. Raja adds that the only differences between the two right now are mere “programmatic differences”.

The ideological war that split the CPI and gave birth to the CPM had begun when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) asked the CPI leadership to moderate its attacks on Nehru’s government. The CPI dropped its radicalism,attacked the Communist Party of China (CPC) after the Sino-Soviet divergence began,and became a Congress ally; the CPM stuck to the radical programme,attacked the “revisionist” CPSU and swore by Beijing. The CPI joined Bengal’s Left Front only before the 1982 assembly election,well after the Emergency. While the CPI and CPM came closer thereon,Jyoti Basu (a surprise entrant into the CPM in 1964) began a moderation programme that made the CPM look increasingly like the old CPI,while the CPI itself irreversibly declined. If and when the two merge,the CPI will probably have to submit to the German re-unification model: being totally subsumed under big brother,to the last man,woman and organisation. It may not matter how weak the CPM is electorally.