The wheel seems to be turning swiftly for the Marxists — a position of power and authority one day, isolation the next. And history is also repeating itself, with the Left’s withdrawal of support to the Congress-led UPA government reminiscent of the way they withdrew support to the Morarji Desai government in 1979. That highly controversial and debatable decision went down in the history of the communist movement in India as the July Crisis of 1979, as recorded in the 11th party congress held in Vijaywada in 1981.

Insiders among the Marxists rank and file fear that the party could be facing its second July Crisis with their Delhi leadership’s decision to withdraw support to the Congress-led UPA government on July 8, 2008. During the 1979 crisis, Jyoti Basu was away in London. Party veterans recall that Basu did not endorse the act of toppling the Morarji Desai government but the front-runners in the party and the politburo prevailed.

In almost in a repeat of 1979, senior politburo members like Biman Bose and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee accompanied general secretary Prakash Karat to Jyoti Basu’s Salt Lake residence on July 5. The purpose was to brief the 95-year-old party patriarch about the decision to withdraw support.

Yet again, party insiders say, Basu was not fully convinced. An ailing, bedridden Basu listened to Karat for nearly half an hour and reportedly hinted at two things. First, the party should be cautious about not providing any opening in national politics for the BJP to exploit. Second, a withdrawal of support should not be seen as synonymous with pulling down the government. The old man’s advice was that the party should not take the blame for toppling a government that it had supported for four and a half years.

... contd.