The more the world changes, the more things remain the same inside the communes of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI). Clinging to Stalinist dogma, the SUCI has been able to preserve, almost untouched, the culture of communes the way its founder Shibdas Ghosh inspired in the late 1940s. SUCI leader Bidhan Chatterjee, who committed suicide in a Puri hotel after sending out a letter to party state secretary Provas Ghosh protesting against what he saw as deviations from the party line, lived in one such commune. SUCI has communes in Tala Park, Shyambazar and Salt Lake areas of Kolkata, and one in Shibpur, Howrah. Chatterjee lived in a party centre in Behala that functions like a commune.Life in a commune is spartan. All the party stalwarts, about 10 of them, live in communes with other members. SUCI has about 45 members who are housed across the four communes. The idea is that senior members in each commune will inspire full members and eventually churn out future bosses. Manik Mukherjee, a senior SUCI leader and member of a commune, said the party spends Rs 5,000-7,000 a month to run each commune. “There are no individuals in a commune. The party meets the requirements of all the members while members with regular jobs are expected to donate all their earnings to the party fund,” he said. Members follow a daily roster for chores like cooking, cleaning and washing. Liquor is prohibited. Commune dwellers are allowed only a hard plank to sleep on. A typical day starts at seven in the morning when party workers come to meet senior leaders. Meetings and briefings follow. Breakfast consists of roti and subji. After this, the leaders head for the party office. Entertainment in communes is restricted to watching news programmes on television. Women are also allowed to live in communes. Married couples can stay too, provided one of them is a staff member and the other has reached a position of seniority in the party. However, living with the spouse wasn’t allowed earlier and is a recent relaxation, probably the result of a tragic incident involving Shibdas Ghosh. The story is that several years ago, when Ghosh was a resident of one such commune, his wife, along with their infant child, came to the commune to meet him when it started raining heavily. A meeting was convened to decide whether she should be allowed to stay at the commune. The leaders agreed that it would be inhuman to ask her to leave with an infant, so the rules could be changed for one night. But Shibdas put his foot down. His wife had to leave with their child. Shortly afterwards, she separated from her husband. There are two ways of looking at the commune setup. One, in the face of sweeping urban liberalisation, such a regimented structure based on a frugal lifestyle is difficult to sustain. Religious setups like monasteries have been able to maintain a similar structure, but primarily been because they are far less exposed to globalisation. On the other hand, it can be argued that it is time to dismantle the commune structure anyway, for it serves as a deterrent to those who might believe in the party ideology otherwise.
